A Close Call and a Look Back

You may have noticed that my column has not appeared in these pages for several weeks. 

I'll try to bring you up to date. I underwent surgery, and five days later, my great wife, who has a nursing background back in her working days, was very concerned about some of my low numbers, including my blood pressure and racing heart rate. 

Lakewood Hatzolah sped the two of us to the hospital on a Wednesday night before I could collect my thoughts on what I needed to take and left one of my shoes and other needed items. I was just hoping to get home for Shabbos. There were over 30 people waiting for a room but baruch Hashem, I was given a tiny space that passed for a room and the next morning moved to a room with a roommate, an interesting Jewish man who was a teacher and attended a Reform temple when he went to services. 

Baruch Hashem, I made it home for Shabbos and will tell you more about the reason for the surgery in the first place and the future medical treatment I have to undergo. I'm willing to share the future as it will possibly help some readers also. I'm lucky to have a wife that pushed me to go to the hospital.

While hospitalized, I thought of the baseball All-Star Game of 50 years ago when I went with Mark The Bird Fidrych to Philadelphia as I wrote about in the last column. While there 50 years ago in 1976, I was lucky to meet author James Michener. 

He was a subscriber to the baseball monthly I headed and grew up in the Philadelphia area. Besides spending a lot of time together, he arranged for a trip to see Connie Mack Stadium, which was undergoing demolition at the time. The old stadium had an Ebbets Field look, double-decked all around except for the big high right field wall. Brooklyn's Ebbets Field had no light towers in right field though, while Philly's historic baseball grounds which housed the American League Athletics through 1954 and National League Phillies until the '60s had two tall towers in the right field wall. 

Michener and I were both closer to 5 feet than 6 feet and we both had a quiet demeanor about us and we loved old ballparks and wrote books on the subject. But that's where the similarities ended. He was super talented. Born in 1907, he won the Pulitzer Prize in 1948 with Tales of the South Pacific. He also wrote over 40 novels including Hawaii and Centennial which gave birth to long television series as did Alaska and Texas. 

He authored 89 books including FirstFruits: A Harvest of 25 years of Israeli writing and The Source, published in 1965, about the Jewish people and the land of Israel. I never read his writings about Israel but I hope I can get the books and Hashem gives me the time to read them.

Michener died in 1997 and I should have kept in contact. After all, he sent me a letter with his address and phone number. I should have realized back then what a treasure he was.