Dear Mr. Wilson

Dear Mr. Wilson,

I am unemployed. I am a poet. I hope you don't take these facts about myself in a bad way. Mr. Wilson, you may have known my father. He had a 32" softball bat and a left-handed glove. I think it might have been fun if you coached one of his college games. I could always make six out of ten free throws from the foul line. Our family was a secure one and a happy one. Now I am revisiting those two words.

Saturdays have always been my favorite day. In the old neighborhood I wore a red sweat jacket with a patch of the Chicago Sting sewn on where a shirt pocket might be. The Chicago Sting is a soccer team. I was a great soccer player. Unfortunately, my pep never got utilized thoroughly in baseball. I would wear that sweat jacket on Saturdays and rake leaves. I often got paid for chores around the neighborhood, but I don't especially remember if I got paid on Saturdays. This memory is permeated with the smell of leaves burning. I would often spend my Saturdays alone. I had no friends at the time. By evening, I usually began to get lonely. I would walk home thinking of one pitcher especially. My dad usually had a game on television. His favorite team was the Boston Red Sox.

In the seventh grade I took a position at one of our local baseball camps. I taught outfielders to turn their back on the ball and chase it down with glove outstretched. One of my students is the current centerfielder for the St. Louis Cardinals. You may have his baseball card.

Upon graduation from high school, I took a job teaching carving for a dollhouse company. My salary was paid by an endorsement I did for the LimeDime popscicle product. I often traveled. I made a point of walking into the rougher neighborhoods on these trips. I was not scared. I found people were usually happy with an explanation such as, "Hi, I have a little girl. It's her birthday, and I'm snooping around for some rags to make her a doll."

It's amazing that people never mind their own business once you're friendly to them. On one porch I sat down on, two little boys were tussling over a piece of curtain that the red-headed one worked from his friend's shoulder. He had been using it to attach a tree branch to his back. As I walked up the stairs, I passed him marching around like a soldier. It actually would have made a good scarf for a doll if I had been creative in those days.

Dear Mr. Wilson,

My favorite baseball team in those days was the New York Yankees. My dad and I both saw Dave Winfield play. My brother and I both saw Don Mattingly play. You have not heard of those names so I will give you a hint. Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Dave will be in the Hall of Fame, but that doesn't matter. He had an ear to ear grin which was worth more than any amount which he did give to a charity he created for inner-city children. Have you ever been to a World Series? If I lived at your time, I would have taken on three paper routes to see the Gas House Gang in the World Series. Here's my take on the game. Baseball is a pastoral game. The players in your day, and definitely before, were strong because they worked on a farm or else in a factory. The players today are strong because they hit the weights. This allows them to run faster, but it says nothing about their skill.

Dear Mr. Wilson,

Creativity has been one of the great strengths of my family. It is a weakness in each of us. I thank Walter Anderson for teaching us how to thrive in a house where the artist's room is no more important than the pantry. One of my favorite Spanish poets wrote a manual on how to raise a tiger in the family room with the creativity we need for public relations students giving us a dry account of how to feature their desks in the company newsletter. My father works at a small business. Their overhead is paid for by the caster wheels carpenters use to construct the stands that Orson Wells needs for his panning cameras. Mother is the secretary.

Their office is in the other direction than my walk home from school. Sometimes my brother and I have exhausted strategies for our skirmishes. I walk a few extra blocks to their office. Mother serves tea. I always ask for a chipped cup that is next to one of the others with pencils and pens. She smiles and says, "A Dixie Cup will do just as well."

I drink the lukewarm tea. Father uses a tin cup. I settle up to his drafting table. I take the pencil out of the cup that I wish someday to drink out of. I go over his drawings of the tilt-boards he uses to compartmentalize the knobs and reels of the cameras. Sometimes I have just begun doodling. He walks in, messes up my hair, and says, "Ain't that the truth."

I usually walk out the side door after that. My train of thought is interrupted, but sometimes it's a good thing. On my home from the office, I stop at a basketball standard. It is made from a tree hit by lightning. Mr. Wilson helped my father bolt a metal rim to the stark face of the tree. Mr. Wilson is one of the men who supplies my father with film reels.