Baseball and LXA

[JonoBN41]

Today I went for a walk in a very small cemetary and it was a good day for it. Cool, cloudy, falling leaves, a mist in the air before I arrived and after I left.

In my previous post I mentioned the grandfather of a good friend of mine who was a Lambda Chi. I can say "was" in this case because he's deceased. That's about as "was" as you can get.

His name is Ferris G. Talmage and I think he was a member of the Commons Club at Syacuse and a founder of Alpha Upsilon in 1918 since he's listed as Class of 1918. My dad worked for him. I went to the cemetary to find out when he died, which was April 7, 1968 when I was 15 years old. Maybe I met him; maybe I didn't. Doesn't matter, but that's the year our local (EKD) was started at FIT, so that's a connection.

What does this have to do with baseball and LXA? I found this online: "The fans who attended the Freetown games were diehard baseball fans, hungry for baseball, and would go anywhere, within reason, to watch a game. They religiously followed their favorite Major League clubs, because baseball was a choice subject of discussion among them. Ferris Talmage's father, Billy, rarely missed seeing a game if it was being played in the East Hampton, Amagansett, or Springs area."

Billy (William) is buried there too. Across the little driveway, I walked up the grass to a large boulder where Jackson Pollack is buried. My dad was friends with him also, artists they were. Pollack died in a car crash in 1956, my dad lasted only four more years.

Brother Ferris Talmage outlived them both, and is listed in the 1968 Directory of the New York Metropolitan Alumni Association, which was published the year he died. There they are, the abstract looking down at the solid LCA farmer.

I write this only as a diversion to the other postings of late and as a reminder that we are all mortal, and doing the best we can while we are here. That's the only thing we can do.

If you understand what I'm saying, listen to this...from Ecclesiastes.

"Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return unto God, who gave it."

In Z A X,
Jono