With baseball season coming to a close, I asked writers in the class I lead via Zoom to choose a baseball term to use as a title for (and the subject of) an essay. A retired school teacher who was active in her union chose “Strike,” a writer who shoplifted as a kid chose “Caught Stealing,” and many others chose “Safe at home.” Deborah Perry was the only one in class who opted for “Slide,” and I am pleased to introduce her as our Senior Class guest blogger today.

First, some background: Deborah, her two sisters and one brother were all born in America but raised in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) when their parents became missionaries there. Living first at Chikore Mission Station, they later moved to Mt. Selinda Mission Station, a tiny village in the middle of Africa’s southernmost tropical rainforest.

Deborah and her siblings live in different parts of the United States now: Deborah is in Chicago and is a regular in the memoir class I lead here. When we switched to Zoom in 2020, she encouraged her two sisters (one in Maine, the other in Massachusetts) to enroll, too. Lucky for us, they said yes. Now our class gets to hear about life in Rhodesia from three different perspectives every week, and today you Safe & Sound blog readers get to enjoy Deborah’s playful “slide” essay, too.

by Deborah Perry

Laid out in a broad, gentle arc in front of the house, the dirt driveway glistened during a brief interlude from the early morning downpour. The rainy season had begun, and when the rain started up again, globs of deep red African mud erupted from the shimmering puddles like exclamation points.

We loved the rainy season.

Deborah, today’s guest blogger, is on the left.

Following every dry winter season we’d celebrate the forest’s hydration, the warm air washing over us. Soon the long grass at the edge of the driveway would turn bright green and the jacaranda tree in the side yard would burst forth in ridiculously intense purple waves.

But the color of this day was a deep brick red. The morning crept along, rain pummeled the road, mud splattered in all directions, and the four of us children cooped up inside grew weary of the days-long Monopoly game spread out on the dining room table.

Hitching up the hems of the skirts of our dresses and tucking them out of the way into our underpants, we burst out of the house and ran down the driveway. Our bare feet pounded the road until we came to the longest, deepest mud puddle of them all.

One at a time, we hit the edge and catapulted ourselves into a long skid. Over and over, each slide compacted the red clay mud into a firmer and faster surface. Finally, exhausted, we collapsed into a giggling mass, soaked in Africa’s rich, red, clay mud.

Dry winter season activities could be as much fun as the sloppy mud puddles. On some of those dry, cooler winter days we’d spread out face down along the edges of the road, the sun warming our backs as we stared, mesmerized, into the depths of tiny funnel-shaped indentations in the dirt. Hidden at the tip of each conical trap was a patient ant lion, a miniature compact but formidable pincered insect waiting for its next meal to tumble in.

Soon enough, an inattentive ant would lose its footing and begin a frantic scramble, trying to escape up the slippery-sided slope. Tiny grains of cascading sand would send a signal that lunch was on its way. The intrepid ant lion would start throwing bits of sand up the sides, exacerbating the sliding sand and ensuring the ant would lose its footing and slip down to the bottom, where it would unceremoniously become lunch.

On other sunny winter days, we’d grab a bucket of water and start digging in the dry, crumbly clay along the edge of the driveway to build curvy roads for our Dinky trucks and cars to travel along. The miniature mud and twig villages inhabited by imaginary families came next, complete with lawns made of soft green moss. Lorries and delivery trucks careened down tiny roads, around curves, screeching to a halt in front of ramshackle abodes. We’d sometimes carve a hole near a hovel so it would have its own swimming pool, slicking down the bottom until it was smooth enough to hold water.

That dirt road, our driveway, was our playground, and while I can not claim to be “mwana wevhu” – a child of the African soil — I do feel a deep connection to the African dirt.

Last night we attended a celebration of the wedding anniversary of two people who’d been legally married for 30 years but spiritually married for longer.

There were lots of people. Who behaved mask-wise. And people who knew they could trust they were in a safe space. You know what I mean.

We met this anniversary pair serendipitously years ago. And the arc of their lives more or less traced the arc of mine and Beth’s. They’d met at U of I. The four of us had worked at the same places. Just a few years apart. (Beth and I are older. Damn.)

They both gave toasts. They were both great. I was struck by one passage. A preface:  “I’d had girlfriends in high school, but I reached the stage where I thought, “What’s the point?” He went on to explain that you’d start dating, with the idea in the back of your mind that this isn’t going to go anywhere.

He explained that they worked together, and before they were lovers/partners whatever you want to call it, they were friends.

I was immediately clued into why we are friends. I met Beth in a journalism class. We got to know each other with no goals or agendas. We stayed in touch, and we were ourselves. By the time we reconnected, I had decided it would be OK if I never had a life partner.

And that’s part of how we got to where we are.

So, to our dear friends, thanks for that celebration, for being our friends, and here’s to many more years.

Hello from Beth: After yesterday’s late-night Chicago White Sox season-saving 12 to 6 playoff victory over the Houston Astros, Mike is away on Cloud Nine. For today’s Mondays with Mike feature, we’re reblogging a post he wrote July 20, 2020. Things sure were a lot different then!

15 months ago there were More people in the outfield than in the bleachers.

by Mike Knezovich

Originally published on July 20, 2020

Today’s guest blogger, Bill Gordon

I am pleased to Welcome Bill Gordon back as a guest blogger today. Born and raised in Kansas, Bill lived all over the country during his nearly 50-year career in library and association management. When he retired in 2002, he was the Executive Director of The American Library Association, located here in Chicago, and has called Chicago home ever since. Bill has been in one or another of my memoir-writing classes since 2013. We’ve come to know each other very well over the years, and after he celebrated his 85th birthday with a few friends last month he sent me a short note. “For entertainment, I decided to read a few of my essays out loud for those friends,” it said. “I wasn’t certain that I should, but it turned out to be a hit. Who knew??”

He needn’t have been surprised. Bill’s essays are always well-written, sometimes witty, sometimes sentimental, always thought-provoking. I hope this was one he read that night, and I thank him for giving me permission to share it here with you Safe & Sound blog readers today.

by Bill Gordon

From the plateau of eighty-five years old I am looking across the decades of my life to see which changes altered my course, changed my direction, upended my plans.

The death of my father when I was a teenager and the devastating financial changes it caused to our lives? Finding myself on my own at eighteen? Marriage? Divorce? Moving six times? Criss-crossing the country for my career? Starting a new life over and over as I moved from city to city? My nearly two-year long travel adventure around the world? Crippling disability? Confinement to a wheelchair? No, none of these changed my life like this one word did:

HOMOSEXUAL.

In 1949 I was an eighth grader at Liberty Jr. High in Hutchinson, Kansas. Lunch was not provided in the public schools, so I had to race home nine blocks, eat lunch and return to school within an hour.

Our first mail delivery of the day — we received two a day in 1949 — was at 10:00 in the morning, so I could peruse the mail while eating lunch.

Many households like ours subscribed to periodicals to supplement what we heard on the radio and read in the daily newspaper. Reader’s Digest was among our magazine subscriptions. Unlike other publications, the table of contents was listed on the Digest’s cover

The memory of one particular lunch time is unforgettable. Among the articles listed on the cover of the Digest was one titled “Homosexuality: The Scourge of America.” I had never seen that word before, but I instantly knew it had something to do with me.

With no time to read the article I raced back to school and spent the afternoon exhausted by anxiety…and eager to have a chance to read the article.

The news was worse than I imagined. The three well-known medical professionals who wrote the article suggested such things as lobotomies, castration, exile, conversion therapy, and institutionalization for all homosexuals. They classified homosexuals as perverts, mentally ill, and contemptible people who engaged in unnatural, illegal acts.

From an early age — perhaps four or five — I knew there was something different about me. As I grew older, I realized I was sexually drawn to both males and females. My early explorations were with boys, a fairly normal maturing process, as it turns out. But then why did my groin tingle just as much when I looked at Janis as it did when I looked at Charlie?

My examination of the card catalog at the Hutchinson Public Library frightened me even more. Under the heading Homosexual it said “see Mental Illness and Criminal Activity.” A surreptitious examination of the literature seemed to confirm that acting on my sexual impulses would mean I was mentally ill and, perhaps, a criminal. But how could that be? I felt I was mentally fit and a law-abiding citizen. Now that I had a word to apply to what or who I was, what was I to do?

My first impulse was to run away. The last thing I wanted to be was an embarrassment to my parents. But running away was not realistic. That would cause my parents anxiety and embarrassment. Suicide never crossed my mind — I liked myself too much. A curious kid, I wanted to see what tomorrow might hold.

What I did know was that I had to hide who I really was.

Permanent change took place for me the moment I saw the word “homosexual.” No more living an authentic life. From then on I intuitively understood I had to disguise anything about myself that might give me away. Being “normal” was the part I would have to play forever. I would have to learn to lie and alter the truth to meet others’ expectations.

My self-imposed rules became: be careful what you say, watch how you walk, notice what you wear, be careful not to stand out, develop a persona that will match what you believe is expected of you, do not have close friends, do your best to fit in or be invisible, be the best student you can be as a defense, do not react if teased or taunted. Feeling I had to live with so many rules, life became exhausting, but I knew somehow I was up to it.

Luck has often been on my side, and as luck would have it, I have led, from my point of view, a fascinating life filled with adventure, friendships, success, and most of all love. I have had the good fortune of being able to adapt, adjusting as the rules changed.

Looking back over these many years, I am comforted knowing that, most important of all, I have loved and been loved with depth and passion. Who could want more?

People with disabilities face a lot—there’s the disability itself. But there’s also the boxes others can put disabled people in. I’ve seen it first-hand. A lot of what Beth does is extremely difficult and sometimes scary. But if she lets on to that, others will assume that she has limitations that she doesn’t have. And she doesn’t want to be a hero or an inspiration—she wants to be Beth.

I hope you’ll read Peter Sagal’s piece in Chicago Magazine. But if you want a quick take on Jason Benetti, check out this animated video he did for the Cerebral Palsy Foundation.

I’ve even felt it. When we had Gus at home some would confer sainthood on me (I’ve always done a good job setting them straight, though). Others treated me like a martyr. One woman, who of all things worked as a social worker, once said to Beth: “Other men would have left.” What to say?

OK, now to the point: Many or most of you probably know Peter Sagal, the host of NPR’s “Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me.” He’s terrific on that show. As I have just learned, he’s a helluva writer, too. He wrote a terrific piece in Chicago Magazine about one of Beth’s and my own favorite humans: White Sox TV play-by-play guy Jason Benetti.

It’s title: “The Storyteller of the White Sox”

Benetti has a whale of a story himself. He was born with cerebral palsy and spent his first months of life in neonatal intensive care. Raised in Homewood, a south suburb of Chicago, he grew up a White Sox fan.

Besides the White Sox games he does with color man Steve Stone, he does a zillion ESPN games—NCAA basketball, some MLB games, and I even stumbled onto a Lacrosse game he announced.

He’s brilliant and funny, and Sagal, who has become friends with Benetti, has written a terrific piece that draws out and explains the kinds of issues Benetti and other disable people face. And how they have to adjust their own attitudes.

A snippet:

Jason knows people stare at him. They always have. Jason knows that his legs are oddly curved, that he walks with a full-body hitch in his step, and that his eyes point in two different directions, making people who don’t know him think he’s congenitally stupid. Jason is far too kind to put it this way, and too well mannered, but his remarkable career and potentially unlimited success isn’t a triumph over adversity. It’s a message to everybody who ever called him a gimp, to parents who told their children not to stare, to the flight attendant who asked him three times if he could handle the weighty duties of sitting in an exit row, and, while we’re at it, to the rival Jason beat out for a college radio sports director job who said, on a public forum, “Well, at least he will be a great magazine story.” And that message is: Fuck you.

I doubt Benetti would ever mouth those words, but his achievements do get the point across. Later in the article, Benetti articulates something that I’ve always felt but never have been able to articulate myself: The tendency to make poster children out of people with disabilities. From the article:

I ask him about his role as a symbol of hope and triumph to the disabled and abled alike. He remains sensitive about it, especially the suspicion — fading but still lingering — that he got his chances to succeed only so he could make everybody else feel better. “You know those video clips where, say, the high school football team lets its disabled manager suit up and take the field and the other team lets him score a touchdown? I have an aversion to those. It’s like dropping food on a country in a famine. It’s nice and a good thing … but what’s going to happen after that?”

But he’s not bitter, and he understands why he is an inspiration to some. A quote from the piece:

I had hoped there was going to be a level of excellence that I would get to that people would just stop caring about how I look. That’s never going to happen. But … I got an email from a guy with a daughter who has CP, and he’s constantly fighting for her, to get her access, to get her opportunity. And he said that when she gets down, he tells her to just watch the White Sox on TV. ‘Forget all that,’ he tells her. ‘Look at Jason. You can do it!’

Indeed.