My stab at Holding On story

 

It was a picture of a man I never met. An autographed picture no less. I carried it to each stop in my life. I carried it when I went off to college – twice. I carried it to every apartment or house I shared with buddies in my hometown after dropping out of college – twice.

I held on to it with the same firmness as my fondest childhood memory.

It came with me on a cross country journey from my childhood home in Huntsville, Alabama to a new beginning in Long Beach, California. I made sure it was with me nearly each time I moved during my 16 years in California. Sometimes I would put it in my car during the move but, most of the time, I would gently place it into the top of one of the boxes. I would label that particular box with the other contents as well as the picture. For example, a box might read, ‘Dishes’ and ‘Hank Aaron.’

Hank Aaron was one of my first sports’ heroes, perhaps the very first. I became an Atlanta Braves fan for geographical reasons. They were the nearest major league baseball team and he was their best player. Over time, though, I became more of Hank Aaron fan than I was an Atlanta Braves fan. For the most part, the Braves were a bad team during that time – save 1969 when they lost to the Mets in the National League championship series. Aaron was one of the best players in baseball.

I remember, when I was a young child, my Dad took the family to Atlanta to see the Braves play the Pirates. I asked if we could sit in right field to be close to Aaron. We did and I was mesmerized the entire time. I’m not sure what year it was but do remember that Roberto Clemente played right field for the Pirates that night. We shared that corner of the stadium with a pair of Hall of Fame outfielders.

The autographed picture, I think, came when I was in third grade, so that was probably 1969 or 1970. I wrote Aaron a letter, telling him how much I admired him as a player, and sent it to the team’s home office. I didn’t ask for anything in return. I just felt compelled to let him know I was a fan. I’m not sure how much later it was when got home from school and had an Atlanta Braves envelope waiting for me in the mailbox. I ripped it open quickly, not knowing what to expect, and out slid a 5x7 picture of Aaron, autographed in blue ink.

Two days later, I took the picture, which was secured in a frame by then, to our class Show and Tell. I repeated that over the next seven or eight weeks until my teacher finally asked me to come up with something new.

The picture stayed with me for a long time, always displayed prominently in my room.

 I remember a one-bedroom apartment I shared with my brother and a friend after dropping out of college for the second time. The place was a wreck. We threw two mattresses on the floor in the bedroom – neither had a bed frame or box spring – and didn’t have a dresser for our clothes. The clean clothes were folded – not often neatly – on the floor or in a closet. Dirty clothes lived in a pile in the corner until my brother’s girlfriend had enough and did our laundry. Beer cans were piled up in the kitchen and chicken bones from the Church’s Fried Chicken at the bottom of the hill were strewn about the floor.  The bedroom door was stuffed in a closet because my brother punched so many holes in it to render it useless.

The only orderly thing in a one-bedroom apartment filled with chaos was my Hank Aaron picture sitting on a night table in the corner of the bedroom. Each day and each night – and sometimes in between – I would check the picture frame to make sure it wasn’t crooked. Seeing how I was the only one paying rent, I was allowed one house rule – don’t mess with my picture.  

 The picture, as strange as this sounds today, was a big part of my life. At some point as I made my way around several residences in the Long Beach area, though, the picture was gone. I was not sure when I noticed it and I’m certainly not sure when I lost it. My guess is I eventually got careless when packing and left it in a box somewhere. Or maybe I made the unconscious decision to take it out of my life. Maybe I decided that cutting that tie to my youth was necessary for me to move forward in my life. No matter what happened, I sure would have loved to share that picture with my son.

The picture of a man I never met.