This week I did what many people who know also did this week with the passing of Carl Erskine: I grabbed one of my copies of The Boys of Summer by Roger Kahn and read chapter 5.
The Boys of Summer is not just a great baseball book, though it is that. It is great literature in general. It is a book well written that helps makes sense of life and relationships, and it reveals many lessons needed for those things that baseball helps nurture.
Chapter 5, titled Carl and Jimmy, is as much about Carl Erskine as it is about his son, Jimmy, who was born with Down Syndrome after Carl had retired from baseball.
Jimmy's story as told by Kahn highlights Carl's second act in life, and his most important one, that of a father. In 1960, when a child had Down Syndrome, many people sent the child to an institution to live.
The Erskine’s took Jimmy home instead.
There is never a bad reason to pick up a classic work. But the passing of one of the thirteen people profiled in the book, and the final survivor, is a good time to revisit that profile.
In this re-reading of Kahn, two sections consisting of three sentences struck me for their use of and beauty of the English language when employed well.
"In the little Indiana den, it is the old story of the father and the son, a startling sunburst over autumn haze, expressed by a father whose own son is robbed of expression." p. 251
This one does not take much explanation when considering a father with a Down Syndrome child. Kahn wove some magic with this one for sure. The “robbed of expression” is an absolutely perfect metaphor.
"Wooden shutters stand open behind Erskine's chair. Memories have poured, but night claws at the window." p. 258
There are many ways to describe an evening getting darker or the sun setting or even the day ending. But when you think about Kahn sitting there in the home of a Brooklyn Dodgers legend and his wanting to hear story after story about times they both knew well, but the clock is ticking, it is getting late, time is short, “night claws at the window.” We all know the feeling. Oh my goodness.
Beautiful prose indeed.
Incidentally, Jimmy just passed away this past November at the age of 63. His life was much longer than his life expectancy at birth would have predicted. That is no doubt due in part to the love that Carl and his wife Betty gave to Jimmy for 63 years.
To have read Carl's life, including the story Kahn tells, is to know that he served his son well over his entire 63 years of life and when Jimmy passed away last year, Carl’s life was complete, his most important job done.
Unfortunately, Kahn is no longer with us for he could tell this story better than any of us.
"Memories have poured..."
*page numbers refer to the First Edition hardback of The Boys of Summer, but the story can be found in Chapter 5 of any edition*
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