I both look forward to AND dread the Fall season. Not only did I have both my weddings in September, but I retrieve my tall boots from the back of the closet in August, just to get them ready to wear on the first crisp day. And yes, we do always go apple picking and then I proceed to get sick eating too many cider donuts. It’s a small price to pay.
Another reason Fall is bittersweet is because it reminds me that my birthday is around the corner, just a few short dreary months away. And when I think about another birthday happening, I remember that for every year I get older, is another year without my father. This is how I’ve always thought about it. I take the number of years old I am turning, then deduct one. That is always precisely how many years Mickey has been gone. Forty-seven years. Today would have been his 78th birthday.
I broke my routine of going through these letters chronologically – technically it is still the Summer of 1965 – so I could find a letter from around his birthday back then. In this letter dated October 10, 1966, he’s turned 23 years old. Twenty-three years old and he is madly in love with Arlene, and knows he wants make a home and raise a family with her. (When I was 23, my love life was a hot mess and I had no idea what I wanted my future to look like.)
The letter includes the usual litany of love proclamations, and he recounts how he spent his birthday at the movies. But my favorite part of this letter is how Mickey spoke about the LA Dodgers, or in his words, the Los Angeles Benedict Arnolds!
Living so close to Yankee Stadium now, I can’t help but think how great it would be to just go to the ballpark with Mickey, have a hot dog and sit in the sun, hoping for a foul ball to come our way.
I guess I’ll just have to settle for rooting against the Dodgers this post-season. Those lousy bums.
Happy birthday Mickey.