My qualifications for writing this blog is that I lived with the "greatest writer of his time," and as William Saroyan once told Jim (50 years a writer), "Be of your time and if possible a little ahead of your time." I invite you to see for yourself if what you read on Jim's site isn't that--timely and could have been written today. Secondly, I am of the wise. Hopefully I can express some of that wisdom.
It's baseball season's end and as a career in baseball was Jim's ultimate dream, I want to share his never ending dream. While he was in indescribable pain up until his death, he wisely used his triumph from when he was a "champ", a "natural", a record-winning hitter, right fielder and clean-up batter during his youth, he never stopped getting into shape, making comebacks, and believing he could still play the game at age 62. He transferred his pain into performance. The principal of a major high school where Jim taught creative writing in the "Poets in the Schools" program (National Foundation for the Arts) asked him once while working out with their baseball and track team, "the record you hold for being the fastest quarter-miler was that fast because you felt your abusive step-father was chasing you, right?" No, Mr. Kelly, my time would have been even better had I not been beaten because I would have had the proper shoes and the freedom and that love for running that sportsmen have. Always, it was a life of sacrifice, giving up his dream and writing about his dream coupled with breaking the cycle of child abuse. He could not watch a modern day baseball game as he knew "the score"--how overpaid the major league players were and how they didn't seem to earn those dollars on the field. He was from a different time, a different place, a different script. "Come babe!"
It's baseball season's end and as a career in baseball was Jim's ultimate dream, I want to share his never ending dream. While he was in indescribable pain up until his death, he wisely used his triumph from when he was a "champ", a "natural", a record-winning hitter, right fielder and clean-up batter during his youth, he never stopped getting into shape, making comebacks, and believing he could still play the game at age 62. He transferred his pain into performance. The principal of a major high school where Jim taught creative writing in the "Poets in the Schools" program (National Foundation for the Arts) asked him once while working out with their baseball and track team, "the record you hold for being the fastest quarter-miler was that fast because you felt your abusive step-father was chasing you, right?" No, Mr. Kelly, my time would have been even better had I not been beaten because I would have had the proper shoes and the freedom and that love for running that sportsmen have. Always, it was a life of sacrifice, giving up his dream and writing about his dream coupled with breaking the cycle of child abuse. He could not watch a modern day baseball game as he knew "the score"--how overpaid the major league players were and how they didn't seem to earn those dollars on the field. He was from a different time, a different place, a different script. "Come babe!"
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