I'm at that age. The age when people you know and people you have followed all your life begin to die. Just last week I heard of a high school friend that is now in hospice care. Since my retirement, I can count six former colleagues that have passed on. Seems like almost daily I hear of the death of a musician, an entertainer, a politico, or an athlete that I admire(d) that has recently died. It comes it the territory.
On the other hand, there are idols of mine that are still around. I was musing about Willie Mays to some friends the other day. My first idol, I had to have his baseball cards and a signature glove. That glove was magic to me. As a Giants fan growing up in LA, it was difficult to find. My dad and I rode the bus downtown to United Sporting Goods where they had a wall of gloves. The McGregor Willie Mays model was there and I was over the moon. Three years later, in the first league championship playoff game, that glove rained down some Willie Mays magic as I drifted back on a high fly ball to dead center and leaped slightly above the 4-foot fence, and robbed Joey Ball of a homerun. His dad was none too thrilled with my catch, but I was certain the glove did the work and Willie was smiling somewhere. After that play, the leadoff batter in the first inning, our shortstop, Mike Reynolds, drifted to the edge of the outfield grass and made a diving catch of a windblown pop fly. Maybe my Yankee team would have a chance of winning after all. Then the next three hitters, Chuck Fox, Richard Close, and Danny Slaugh, all hit monstrous home runs. They were all big 12-year-olds, and the game was essentially over before the third out of the first inning. But that catch was mine...forever.
By my early teens, another idol had come along. Seeing the Civil Rights movement unfold on TV during the summers of '63 and '64, by 1965 I was fascinated with a new idol: Bob Dylan. Soon afterward, I picked up a harmonica and began writing poetry every chance I got. There was something in the air that Dylan had captured and as the Civil Rights movement became entangled with the unpopularity of the war in Vietnam, new music was on fertile ground. Dylan said important things and my generation was paying attention.
Of course, my idols grew, changed, and ultimately aged. Both are still living as this is written. I'm preparing myself for a world without them. Willie Mays is in his 90s now and Dylan, who is still touring and writing, is in his 80s. They continue to inspire me as I travel through this world a decade and a half behind them.
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