Monday, April 08, 2013

Spending Sunday With The Sound of a Familiar Voice

By Craig

On Sunday afternoon before the gusty winds came, when the breeze was still gentle and the sun was out, I grabbed a beer and sat on my front porch. My house is only about 1,000 square feet in size so the front porch makes for a nice bonus room. It's the place where I go when I want the world to slow down.

On the TV in the living room the Dodgers game was on and I turned up the sound. Without the pictures I only had the voice of Vin Scully to inform me of what was going on on a brilliant afternoon in a ballpark 100 miles south of here. Listening to his voice transported me back to the early 1960s when my dad would come home after work and we would listen to that same voice call Dodgers games on the radio. We lived in a duplex near the Wilshire District in L.A. I was only 9 or 10 then. As I sat on the porch Sunday I was struck by the fact that some 50 years later, and long after both of my parents had departed this world, I was still listening to Vin broadcast the Dodgers, only this time in my own home instead of that of my parents. I'm amazed that someone who has met both Jackie Robinson and Clayton Kershaw is still going strong as the voice of the Dodgers.

Sunday afternoons tend to be quiet in my downtown neighborhood which is a mere three blocks from State Street. As I drank my beer on the porch while listening to Vin's voice and thinking back to my childhood in L.A., living forever suddenly seemed like a possibility. If every Sunday is like yesterday, it's going to be a good spring and summer.