I think it was last year that I showed you a story about David Ortiz in Sports Illustrated. Yesterday I read an article about his teammate, Manny Ramirez, in the USA Today.




Jack is still a huge Red Sox fan, and Mom, Joe and I definitely like Manny. This was my favorite part of the article.

"My biggest dream is not to hit 500 home runs or 600 or 700," says Ramirez, who turns 36 on May 30. "My dream is for God to give me enough health to watch my kids grow up, have a beer with them, watch them graduate. That's my Hall of Fame.

"You might hit a home run or whatever, but getting home and having your kid tell you, 'Daddy, I love you,' that's priceless."

Those words might seem at odds with Ramirez's image as a goofy character without a care in the world, an impression bolstered by his baggy uniform, flapping dreadlocks and lapses as a fielder and baserunner. But current and past teammates, as well as others close to him, insist that snapshot doesn't fully capture Ramirez.

I haven't written you for a long time. I just keep talking to you in my head and writing these notes on scraps of paper that I have all over the place.

I finally decided it was time to get back to it. Here goes.

We went to St. Michaels this weekend for Memorial Day. It was Papa Sy's 77th birthday.



Andrew and Tracy and your cousins were there. Our friends Hugh and Mary Beth and their family rented a house nearby and spent a lot of time with us. Nice.

We did the usual stuff. Rode bikes, played baseball, saw a lot of animals, went kayaking (just me -- no-one ever wants to go with me -- I am officially "Chopped Liver"), put boats in the water and stuffed ourselves silly.

This snake was on the driveway when we came home from riding our bikes into town. He was "sunning" himself. Joe and Sam and I watched him until he slithered away.



This is a bird that Joe and I found in the batting cage at the local St. Michael's high school. We couldn't hit 'cause we didn't want to hit the bird.



The bird wasn't moving. He didn't seem like he could or that he wanted to fly. I opened up the netting to let him out and he didn't budge. It was then that I realized that the bird was staying inside the batting cage for protection.

I told Nana about the bird and she said she had a friend who "rescues" birds. I went back later on to put the bird in a box to bring to Nana's friend and the bird had died. When Joe was going to bed that night I asked him what the highlight of the day had been. He said, "the bird." I didn't have the heart to tell him what had happened.



This is a really blurry picture of the Vice President's helicopter over Papa Sy's house. I recognized the whirr of the rotors from home. His helicopter is the only thing that can fly over our house in DC and the house in St. Michaels.

The Vice President gave a talk to the soldiers graduating West Point in the morning and by the afternoon he was in St. Michaels. Mom said that he lands at the Inn at Perry Cabin and then drives up to his house. I still want to get the ride from our street in Washington to here in the helicopter. No traffic!



Uncle Andrew and I helped Papa Sy put the Tashmoo in the water. The battery was dead so I had to paddle it to the dock. We got Rulen the Waves in halfway. It is a great adventure helping Papa Sy with all of these boats. We needed a higher tide to carry the sailboat off the trailer. I felt bad leaving Papa Sy without having gotten that boat all the way in.



The pool was freezing but that didn't stop your brothers and your cousins. I was in the Broad Creek a bit and that was fine. A lot of muck and ooze but no jelly fish, so I was happy. Joe looks pretty happy here.



Tonight is Michael's birthday. He is 13. A real teenager or a Jewish man, take your pick. His other grandparents, Arlene and Harvey, are having a pool party at their house tonight. We'll be seeing everyone all over again.

Some of the notes I am keeping are just things that I want to tell you about your brothers. Here goes:





-Every morning I find an entire playground's worth of wood chips in Joe's sneakers. For the life of me I don't know how he walks around like that all day and doesn't seem to notice or complain.

-Jack did incredibly well on his tests in school. He is really smart. I am proud of him. He is way smarter than me. Yesterday he started telling me that he thinks about what happens in different dimensions. I don't even know what other dimensions there are. He explained to me that there are other universes and he thinks about what those other universes are like.



-Joe has decorated his room in pictures of athletes that he has cut out of magazines and books.

-Your brothers, both of 'em, won't wear jeans.

-Joe has the bad habit of admiring his hits in baseball. Mom explains that he is the only player who turns triples into singles because he stands at the plate after he hits the ball to watch how far it goes. He reminds me a bit of Manny Ramirez of the Red Sox.



-Jack is a big fan of comedy. He listens to Steve Martin, Bill Cosby and Monty Python.



-Joe isn't big on learning to swim or ride a bike. This frustrates me a lot but I know it is only a matter of time. Patience. He can't go through life not knowing how to ride a bike, right?

-Both guys and Mom became fans of this show called American Idol. Joe was crushed when his favorite, a guy named Blake, didn't win.

-Jack watches the Simpsons... maybe too much. The Simpsons Movie is coming out soon.



-Joe watches SportsCenter all the time. Our routine is that he comes down for breakfast and we watch the highlights together. He always asks me "Who won," and I try to teach him to read the scores and learn for himself.

-Jack had a ceremony at school where he and his classmates got their own Chumashim. What was interesting for me is that when the whole class was singing I could hear Jack's voice separate from everyone else. I guess that is what being a parent is.



-Joe is obsessed with jigsaw puzzles. He went from ones with a few pieces, to 100 pieces to 200 pieces and I think he is working on a 500 piece one. Mom helps him out, but he is good on his own.

-Jack likes the Red Sox and Joe is a Yankees fan (I am rooting for the Nats and wish they would too)

So I guess what I want to report to you Big Brother, is that your two younger brothers are doing great. Jack needs to be a little nicer to Joe but otherwise, they're cool.

Aside from Mom's trip to China... here are some pictures from that...













...there is other big news that I didn't report. First, Zhenny left us. She wasn't working enough hours, so she needed to go to a family who needed her more often. You were the one who told me to hire Zhenny. I still remember calling her from Minnesota to tell her that we were coming home without you. She had only been working with us for a few weeks at that point. That was hard. We are going to miss her - Joe most of all. They have an incredibly close bond and Joe is so tight with her husband Peter and her son Jeff. Hopefully, Zhenny can come over to babysit from time to time.

The other really, really big news is that Papa Teddy is getting married to his friend Jeri. That is happening in June. I am Best Man. I am really happy for him.

Papa Teddy and Jeri just went to Italy for a visit. Here are some pictures of their trip.







Aunt Abby, Uncle Andy, Cousin Michael, Rachel, Joshua and little Noah are heading to Italy next month. Bill and Cristina went to Italy this weekend for a few days themselves. Seems like the place to be. I told Mom that I'd like to go to Israel after we go to Spain next summer with everyone for the 10th Anniversary of Bill and Cristina's wedding. You and Grandma are the ones who made the original trip who won't be there for the reunion.

 

That's a picture of you and me on a boat from that trip.

Hey, we had 3 Israeli girls stay at our house this weekend. They are going into the army soon and before they start their service they travel to the United States for a while. I'm glad we were able to host them. They said to visit when we go to Israel. Maybe we will.

Today was Joe's birthday. He turned five. He is energetic and loud and frustrating and beautiful. I cannot believe he is older than you were when you had your bone marrow transplant. I don't know how you did it when you were so young. You seemed so grown up to me.

Joe got a fish from Papa Teddy. He named it "Potato Man." Mom and I gave him a Nationals jacket and a Red Sox jersey with his name and number "1" on the back. We also went and bought him a new baseball bat at Galayans, now Dicks. His bat is really beat up with all of these dents. Not sure where they're from - maybe Joe is hitting Jack on his hard head with the bat.

I think he liked everything. The birthday pageant is almost over. Nana has a cake ready for us when we get to St. Michaels tonight. It is - of course - a baseball cake. I wonder if he is going to grow out of this or if it is something he'll stick with for a long time. I'll report back next October 6.

Last week was a week of firsts. On Thursday, Jack had his first saxophone lesson, and on Friday, Joe had his first real baseball game.

Jack had been wanting to learn to play my grandfather's, your great-grandfather's saxophone. I am sure you saw it. It was down in the basement in the black case. Jack has blown on it from time to time, but he wanted to learn how to play it for real. It is a beautiful instrument. It is silver. When Jack blows on it I think of Lisa Simpson.



Speaking of the Simpson's, that is about the only cartoon Jack is interested in anymore. Jack, Joe and I went to see a cartoon movie about baseball called, Everyone's Hero. Joe loved it, of course, but Jack was kinda bored. He is at the point where he prefers live action movies over cartoons. Realizing that made me sad, but that's life.

Jack, Mr. Grownup, is already thinking of the band that he can form with his buddies. I'd love for him to be in a band someday. I don't have a musical bone in my body, but I love listening to Mom and Jack play the piano.

And your little guy Joe finally got a chance to show his stuff. He is on the Pirates in the Capitol City Little League. Originally the team was the Red Sox but they changed it for some reason. Too bad.



The team is for 5-7 year olds but since Joe is almost 5 years old I figured he'd be okay. There are other 4 year olds on the team. We know a lot of the other parents already so that's nice.



Joe played really well. He got two hits and made it home. I am glad he is playing with a whole team now. He has lots of talent but he needs to learn about being a good sport and a good teammate. I tell him all the time that he needs to listen to his coaches. He isn't a very good listener and that is frustrating. Hopefully it is just me he doesn't listen to.



Here are two nice things I heard the past few days. During the game, right after Joe got a hit that went past the infield, the two coaches for his team said, "Who's his dad?" They were impressed with how far Joe can hit and they were thinking that someone is giving Joe good coaching.

I said I was Joe's dad, but I couldn't take any credit. That is the truth. He was born with great skills (something he got from Mom, not me) and he works very, very hard. But, of course, I was smiling inside.

Then on Sunday, Joe and I were playing baseball on the Mall near the Washington Monument. Joe insists on practicing all the time because he wants to be a professional ballplayer some day. Well a passerby who was watching him hit yelled over to me, "That kid will take care of your retirement." They meant that he's so good he'll play pro ball some day and make a lot of money.

If this was back when I was growing up I would think he might have a shot one day to play in the Major Leagues. But these days things are out-of-control crazy and parents start grooming -- which means getting them ready -- their kids for sports when they are super duper young. So I don't know if just being good is good enough any more.

Joe is only 4. Maybe next year he'll want to be an astronaut and not a big leaguer. What would be nice is if he coaches little kids when he grows up. And hopefully the kids he coaches will learn to be good listeners.

We are back from picking up Jack.

We drove up on Friday to New York, and stayed overnight with Lisa, Bruce, Evan and Alex. The next day we had brunch with some really nice friends of theirs. We made it to Massachusetts on Saturday afternoon. We stayed at a hotel on a lake not far from Palmer, Massachusetts where the camp is, and Joe was loving it. There were ducks and other kids for him to play with. When we were having dinner out on this deck on a beach at the lake, a nice man who came to the restaurant on a boat with his kids was telling us how lucky he is to wake up and go waterskiing barefoot every morning. That sounded nice.

I remembered the place across from our hotel, the old Sturbridge Village, from when Grandma and Papa Teddy and I picked up Aunt Jen at Camp Ramah back in 1973 or 74 when she went there. I called Aunt Jen to tell her where we were. It is too bad that Hannah doesn't go to camp there with Jack.

We arrived at Ramah at 10 am on Sunday and there was a long line of cars waiting to get in. I joked with Mom that she was using all of her self restraint not to jump out of the car and run up to Jack's bunk.

When we finally got up to Jack's bunk he was there ready for us. We didn't need to read his shirt to know what to do. When it was my turn, Jack jumped up into my arms and I got a great long hug. Yummy.

Jack looked great. His hair was long, feet were muddy and his smile was a mile wide. He introduced us to his counselors -- one was from England -- and his bunkmates. When we went into the cabin it was a beautiful thing to behold. It was a glorious mess of boy stuff. Packages of Twizzlers, wet towels and smelly shoes were thrown all over the place.

I was jealous.



Jack said that he got more mail than anyone. Psych. We are really good at overdoing things in this family.

He was already talking about plans for camp for next summer. He wants more of his friends from home to come. Aside from Matthew and Sam, he wants David and Max to go. We'll have to talk to their parents. Oh, you know who was at camp, Eyal from your class at the Gan. I am not sure I spelled that right. It was good to see his parents.





When we were driving from the hotel to the camp we stopped to ask for directions. The man told us to take a left at the blue cow. Blue cow? The blue cow was at an ice cream place called Rondeau's. I remembered Aunt Jen talking about Rondeaus when we were kids.

We went to Rondeaus after we put all of Jack's stuff in the car. All of his buddies and their parents went to get ice cream and make camp last a little bit longer.







Does Mom look happy to see Jack? Everyone got Root Beer floats.



Matthew's family told us they were going to the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts which was really close to Palmer. I thought it was a great place, especially because the whole bottom floor was a basketball court and there were plenty of basketballs for people to shootaround with.





I was lucky enough to get tickets for us to all to go see the Yankees play the Red Sox at Fenway Park in Boston that night. We headed straight to Fenway after the Basketball Hall of Fame. We got there about 3 hours before the game and had a great time. They close off the streets by the ballpark and there are a million people out.

We had dinner at this sports bar, Game On, and got a perfect table right out on the street. I was feeling blessed.

It was fun watching all of the people walk by. The DJ at the bar played great music to get everyone excited for the game. One of the songs they played and that they play at each game at the middle of the eighth inning was/is Sweet Caroline. You know I was thinking of you.

And of course we had to go shopping for Red Sox stuff. The guys got jerseys. I wonder if Washington fans will ever love the Nationals the way that the New England fans love the Red Sox. It will take years and years.







The game started at 8:05 pm and about an hour after it started it began to rain. When you include our rained out trip to Busch Stadium in St. Louis, we have a pretty high rain to ballgame percentage. But luckily, this wasn't a rainout, only a rain delay. The delay lasted about an hour.

By the time they started to play again it was pretty late and Jack was falling asleep. We headed to our hotel, missing David Ortiz's homerun, and everyone fell asleep right away but I stayed up to watch the rest of the game on TV. I fell asleep about 1 am and it was tied 5-5 going into extra innings. I kinda sensed that when I woke up I would see that the Yankees had won. I was right. It was a terrible weekend for the Red Sox. But even though it rained and even though the Red Sox lost, we all had a great time and I still felt blessed.

Next year we are all going to go on the tour of Fenway that I took last summer. Hopefully the Sox will be in town and we will see a win.





The weather cleared up the next morning for our ride back to Washington. Mom and I thought it would be fun to stop at the Mystic Aquarium in Connecticut. We have talked about stopping there for years because they have beluga whales.

There is a beluga swimming just to the left side of everyone in this picture. It was a great stop. I would love to see them in the wild some day.







There were 3 of these whales. They are so peaceful and beautiful. I asked Joe if he thought we can keep one in the pool in St. Michaels.













The remainder of the car ride back was long but fun. We all got along well which isn't easy when you are packed in a small space for such a long time. This might be left over from all of our trips with you to the hospitals in Minnesota and New York and New Jersey.

At one point we were stuck in really bad traffic in New York so we made a movie and interviewed everyone in the car. It was nice to talk about how great it was to see Jack again.

Joe loves to sing Take Me Out to the Ballgame. He sang that for a few hundred miles. Mom gave him her iPod and then he sang along with Weird Al Yankovic songs for a few hundred more. Joe likes to make noise -- it doesn't matter if it is singing or talking or doing play-by-play when he plays Gameboy or just making sounds. Not sure where that comes from.

Jack is just the opposite. If I didn't look in the back seat I wouldn't know he was in the car. He just sits and reads and listens to his iPod.

It was pretty late as we got close so we started cranking tunes, like the music from the movie School of Rock and AC/DC, and signing along... loud. I think everyone was excited about getting home. How cool is it that we all like the same music. I like being able to introduce Jack to songs I think he will like. At one point he asked me why Ted Williams and Jimi Hendrix are similar. I said because they were both great left-handers. He explained that he was thinking about how much better they were than their respective teammates/bandmates. I was impressed.

With you being gone forever, I think Mom, especially, was worried about Jack leaving and him never coming home. She said it was nice to wake up this morning and go downstairs to see everyone laying around on the couch in their PJs. I think we are all okay.