Living in Coronaviruswolrd 259: Holy Week begins

 3/31

Palms

Passing out palms

Holy Week begins.  A mild Sunday morning. Palm Sunday.Time for the Times, a cherry Danish and a latte at my Venezuelan cafe.  Walking down the Boulevard, the First Corinthian Baptist Church is still covid closed.  But under the scaffolding, there are long tables, fresh cut palms, church volunteers passing then out to all who pass.  I take two. This will be my celebration. 

I hold the palms, remember a lifetime of Palms. In my early days at West Park, tall Eric from Jamaica would take his machete and cut the palms for everyone.  And before and after services, our ushers would pass them out on Amsterdam Avenue, we would pass out the palms. Always saving some to turn to ashes next Ash Wednesday,

As a child, it was just Palm Sunday. Waving palms and sung hosannas.  But sometime in the 70’s, fearing people would leap directly from the joy of Palm Sunday to the joy of Easter without passing through the passion and darkness of Holy Week, it liturgically transformed into Palms to Passion Sunday.  A tall order, telling that whole story. One year, Katherine and I created our own liturgy based on Stephen Mitchell’s telling of the story in his Gospel According to Jesus. One year, Greg led us with his berimbau chanting hosanna like a capoeirista. 

In later years, Theatre Dzieci would bring their Passion play to us. Transposing the story of this executed Jew into ghetto Poland. Trading parts unit all had been Jesus and all Judas. As it is and we are. (http://dziecitheatre.org/)

At our Monday Bible Study,  we studied the story in Mark, (11: -11). We notice details. Jesus, in a parody of a Roman triumphant entry, riding on a donkey, a beast of burden,  not a stallion, a war horse. He had sent agents out to get a donkey, using coed language in what Ched Myers in Binding the Strong Man) sees as evidence of a well organized underground resistance. 

The people spread branches in front of him. (Only John specifies palms.) they are shouting Hosanna, save us…now! Hoping this will be the beginning of liberation. And then  goes to the temple and looks around. (Myers wonders, a reconnaissance mission?) And leaves. Tomorrow he will return, to overturn the tables, his final  direct action campaign.

We are not out of the narrow place, mizraim, Egypt, yet. We are not yet liberated. Though we who are privileged must understand the difference between  our captivity and the material oppression of so many of our brothers and sisters here and globally. 

At our Monday songwriter workshop, a friend offers a new song, ‘Spring Fever,” about how it’s that time of year again. Of white men shooting up places and killing people.  Happens every year.              

We live in world  of bullies. Netanyahu, Bolsinaro. Myanamar. Ambazonia. Hong Kong. Jesus on the donkey denies their power and offers a different kind of leader. We may for may not be ready for. 

We follow him into Jerusalem, not knowing what comes next even as we step out of our houses and begin to look around. Wide eyed, expectant, hopeful and anxious.  Through these streets we marched last summer..Black lives matter…peaceful protest…no justice no peace. If  we don’t get it, shut it down. 

Palm Sunday,.Holy Week begins.

Living in Coronavirusworld 258: Passover 2021

 3/27

Passover

Passover 2021

And now our second Passover in coronavirusworld.   No extended family gatherings. Just our “core four” get together.  ZOOM with the cousins and inlaws for awhile. Sara asks us “what is your Egypt, what are you trying to leave, what holds you back?” I consider all the deeply personal things I could say, things I am so painfully aware of and my son whispers “you don’t have to go so deep…” I nod as if to say “I got this.” I say, ‘I understand Egypt to be mizraim, the tight place. This virus has been a very tight place. It has kept us inside. Restricted our lives. And now, things are slowly starting to open. Again. But we don’t know…we don’t know…what’s holding me back? Uncertainty. Uncertainty…”

I spent yesterday shopping. No matzohs at the Harlem Whole Foods. Rumors of shortages all around. I'll have to go to Zabar’s to finish my shopping. I miss the old “Best Market” on Fredrick Douglass with its barbecue counter and seasonal Chabad displays in a store that knew its neighborhood and its needs well. 

The knife I saw in the Zabar's catalogue, I wanted to buy as a gift, well, not there…looks like online only.

After hosting  our every Friday virtual open mic, I start my cooking. Last night  it’s  Greek charoset from the Hania community on the isle of Crete. Tomorrow, after a wedding (‘Can we take our masks off?,  the couple asks…"of course", I say...), and planning a much delayed memorial service, I’ll make a Moosewood spinach, mushroom, cheese and matzoh casserole and New Orleans style “dirty Matzoh” stiffing to go with the main course lamb meat balls with tzatsiki. 

As we eat, we remember and talk about the seders we experienced in the past, before...... And accept the quiet of this one for what it is.

Sunday, l join  my friend Steve’s Congregation Sim Shalom “virtual” seder with people from around the country. (And even world.) I share the old spiritual ‘Pharoah’s army got drownded…” with the Arlo Guthrie verse,
“Moses was the first to get the notion that the world is safer with the army in the ocean cause Pharoah’s army got drownded…”

On Passover in 2021, the plague continues, the  Angel of Death has not yet passed over.  Our vaccinations and masks like marks above our doorways toward off the Angel. . Our lives are still stuck in the  narrow place like a super container ship in the Suez Canal. Ironically, the numbers of our dead are helping to move us towards immunity. Everyone has suffered losses. We’re standing at the edge of the Red Sea. Placing one foot in the water. Waiting  for the waters to start to part as we wade deeper.  The Promised Land is a long way off.

Living in coronavirusworld 257: Officially spring. It's been. a year.

 3/22

African dance class

It’s officially spring now. The weather has turned sunny and warm. Again.  And it’s been a year living in coronavirusworld. People are outside. My neighbors are putting their lawn chairs out on the sidewalk, getting ready for a warm night on the street of music and drinks and  talk. It’s been many months. 

A year ago, there was a sense of dawning apocalypse as everything radically shut down and what was was taken away from us. And day by day we began to adjust. Plotting daily just how to live. As Calamity Jane said in “Deadwood”: “Every day takes figuring out all over again how to fucking live.” And so we did.

As the weather warmed, walks became important. Getting out of the houses we were confined to in the peak days in quarantine lockdown.  I walked slowly and looked intently. Noticing for the first time the subtle changes day to day as new flowers blossomed forth in Central Park. Noting daily the life in Morningside and Central. Turtles. An egret. Ducks. Swans. A feral cat. Pizza eating  squirrels.  I came to understand the marvelous and unnecessary diversity of being and that each  creature was in its own way, perfect, doing precisely what it was meant to do. And coming to accept that I, in my imperfection, was somehow perfect too.

In Central Park, I saw the field hospital spring to life. And in the air cleared of helicopters and planes and streets cleared of traffic, I heard the birds sing again as new species arrived every day. I was with  only one other human being. We set aside the pain of our separation and became walking partners. 

I set rituals to give the amorphous time boundaries. Coffee outside one cafe on Monday mornings…until it closed its doors forever…and organizing my week.  ZOOM Bible studies on Mondays. Tacos on Tuesday. A virtual open mic on Fridays to replace the one we lost. The Morningside farmers’ market on Saturday mornings with coffee. Newspaper, pastry and latte at the Venezuelan coffee shop every Sunday. 

Enthusiastically set out to create a cultural life. Became a regular attendee of the National Theatre of London. And others. Steady consumption of Shakespeare. Set out to experience Wagner’s “Ring Cycle” with the Metropolitan Opera. And survived. 

Watched regular parts of my life turned into ZOOM. With its alienation and intimacy. Learned how to produce ZOOM concerts, stream them live onto Facebook and even how to import videos. Ran my own “Lockdown Showcase” series under the “Grateful Distancing Stay at Home Tour of 2020.” And wrote enough songs for a 2020 EP.

Stood with nurses demonstrating for adequate PPE. Followed the Black Lives Matter marches through the streets of my Harlem neighborhood. Intently followed the primaries and the election that wouldn’t end breathing in relief at the outcome as the neighborhood exploded with celebration.

Committed to writing each day, trying to mark the subtle daily changes and signs of resistance as we created a way to live. Saw my numbers go up again.

Agonized as my mother in her assisted care facility found her life reduced to that of an incarcerated prisoner with one supervised 15 minute visit behind glass a week and then quarantine solitary confinement after any doctor’s visit or other outside visit. 

Experienced the deaths of three people in three weeks as many continued to deny the reality of the virus. Learned to live in a mask.

Learned the adventure and pleasure of eating dinner outside at 30’ temperatures. (-1C).

As time ground on, that initial excitement began to wane. Could only watch so many plays. And tired of daily writing  and saw the readership  numbers ago down again, never learning why so many readers in Italy were following me. 

As Rusted Root once sang, “Won’t ya come along, Babylon, ‘cause we’re living in a land of virtual reality…”

Milica at the Composers Conordance concert

Times Square

the parrot

After five weeks of virtual “Low key Chamber Concerts” my new music classical friends hold a live concert in a rehearsal studio near Times Square. With an audience of 10. Walking home, I see the life of Times Square…break dancers, action heroes and Sesame Street hustlers,  a giant panda, an evangelical born again Christian Korean youth choir, a giant live snake and a snow white parrot.  We are still here. Stretching out. Stepping into the sun again.

Sunday, Morningside is filled with people and picnics and birthday parties and fathers playing catch and white women learning African dance. 

Entering into a new netherworld, not locked down but not what was and not knowing what will be as we feel our way forward.

It’s officially spring now.

 

Living in Coronaviursworld: reflections on St.Patricks' Day and shootings in Atlanta....

 3/18

That day again

St.Patrick’s Day has  come and gone for another  year. And a strange one it was. No parade for sure. Restaurants open under the 35% rule. Up and down the pub crawl strip of Amsterdam Avenue, practically every place has a minimum 30-40 minute to an  hour wait time for a seat ,no bar seats allowed,  indoors or

The Gate

even out. There is a nice live band playing between 81st and 82nd.

Live Irish music....

My friend and I ultimately find a table in a tiki bar, probably the only non-green spot on the strip. But a good place to have a drink and watch Irish the passing scene  outside. Socially distance and responsible, of course. 

I remember past St.Patrick’s Days like the Occupy Era ’s march to the Irish Potato Famine memorial and the passing out of potatoes to plant to the marchers.  Our San Patricio celebration at West Park with Mexican and Irish bands to commemorate the heroic battalion that went over to the Mexican side during the US- Mexico War.

I share here a previous reflection:

OK...the easy thing to do is just go all shamrocks and leprechauns and just say "Happy St.Patrick's Day everybody"...and forget that the first New York St. Patrick's Day parade was a demonstration  for respect and dignity by denigrated immigrants...and that the potato famine was not a natural disaster but the results of a nearly genocidal imperialist colonial agriculture policy by Great Britain..and that the refugees were viewed suspiciously....lived side by side by African-Americans in 5 points and Seneca Village...until they were accepted as white..that they were disproportionately drafted..and sent to Mexico in an imperialist war...West Point's first Irish graduate John Riley took his batallion to the other side where his mainly Catholic immigrant  conscripts joined the Mexicans as el batalon san patricio. When captured they were hung as traitors without the usual court martial trial . Honored as heroes  in Mexico. Hidden in history in the US until️ recently. El batalon san patricio presente!

And happy St. Patrick's Day!

                                                    ****

The recent murders in Atlanta are disturbing on a number of issues.  Right on the surface of course is the recent rise in anti-Asian animus in the US.  Much of this is rooted in  feeling helpless in the face of Covid ....or  the “China Virus” as the former president continues to  say even now. It’s like, hey, there must be somebody to blame…our need to personalize and embody the invisible enemy, 

The sheriff emphasizes that the accused was a self-described sex addict and “having a rough day.”   Dude…those were almost all Korean women you killed…don’t say it’s not about race. 

One  problem is how race intersects with sex. How Asian women’s bodies are sexualized and fetishized so a “sex addict” can see Korean women as his enemy.

W also have at work here micsogeny and dehumanization and failure to protect the lives  of sex workers. 

And not to mention how massacres waiting to happen actors get their guns in the first place. Sex addict explains very little when so much is revealed and demands to be engaged. 

Yes disturbing. Time for solidarity. And serious examination of these American societal dynamics. 

Living in coronavirusworld255: Remembering the last days of normal

3/11

The last night

As we reach the one year anniversary of our national lockdown, I feel the need to remember the last week of normal, the last week BC (before corona) and the last week of life the way it was. 

Spring training

Saturday, March 7th.  I leave LeCom Park in Bradenton with the Pirates leading the Yankees  3-1. By the time I reach the Tampa Airport, the Bucs have collapsed and the Yankees win 7-4. Kind of set the tone for the season that would come so many months later. But as for now, just my last spring training game. Little did I know that would be my last big league game for nearly a year.

Sunday, Match 8th. Our family “culture club” takes us to St.Ann’s Warehouse where we see Ruth Negga’s riveting performance as Hamlet. There are rumblings, about the virus but nothing certain. Our last time together as a family for theatre or any other cultural event.

Monday, March 9th. I go see my friend Kristina in her appearance in AMIOS theatre’s “Shotztrek: the next generation” …short humorous plays built around StarTrek. Hers is ‘You can’t see what you can’t see.” At the Kraine Theatre in the East Village. Afterwards, we go to a pub across the street and hang out with her cast members. Who knew that would be the last time?

Pens and Devils

Tuesday, March 10th. I take the train to Newark to see my hometown Penguins play the Devils in hockey. The Pens come away with a decisive 5-2 victory. Maybe I’ll see them play the Rangers in the Garden next week?

I finish the night at the Shelelagh in Astoria to catch my friend Paul Anthony and the Marauders play live and take the long bus and train ride home.

Wednesday, March 11th. Our Underground theological conversation group meets at our regular meeting  place, the world famous Tom’s Diner from the Seinfeld show.

Thursday, March 12th, the fateful day. NBA player Rudy Gorbert, who just recently touched all the reporters mics to mock Covid, tests positive for the virus. And one by one the dominoes begin to fall.. the NBA shut down. Then the NHL.  The Ivy League had already canceled its tournament giving regular season champ Yale an automatic entry into the NCAA tourney. My brother had told me much about a great Dayton ballplayer with unbelievable dunks named Obi Toppin, so I had planned to see them play in the Atlantic 10 tournament in Brooklyn on Friday. Canceled. The whole March Madness canceled. Baseball’s spring training shut down. Theatre’s closed. Maybe I can catch a museum exhibit instead? All closed. All the doors were swinging shut.

Friday, March 13th.  After much debate, we decide to go ahead with Open Mic. I get to the church, Martin is leaving his Noche Flamenca dance studio angry that we’re going ahead. In the chapel, Dion has made all the snacks individually wrapped. No bowls of chips or popcorn or pretzels to dig into and share. It’s a good night.  And the gang heads down to the Gate for after show drinks. And the night goes on. By next Friday, the church building will be locked down. 

The "Real Radio Show" cast

Saturday, March 14th.  I have a gig with the radio icon Frankie Dee’s “Real Radio  Show” at the Aloft hotel at La Guardia Airport.  It’s still on somehow. So it’s a long train and bus ride. Things are quiet at the Aloft. None of the other performers I know are there. The other performers there are all under 30. I’m wondering why I’m there. I discover I’m colorful. Frankie Dee in his interview with me is fascinated that I’m a former minister. Turns out the kids think I’m cool and like my music. Old guy that I am.  There’s a group of young Vietnamese. And a Pakistani guitar player, Amish Darr. And a young red-haired  Irish singer Rosie Timmons. After our individual sets, we finish with Steve Nicks’ Landslide, me singing harmony with Rosie. A fun show with no audience. But the radio. The old pro Frankie’s first show featuring Indie performers, a move from his standard metal and hair bands. He praises us for our bravery and promises us special shows in April as a reward and we all figure that will happen. Harmony will disappear from my life for many months.

Closed for St.Patrick's

Everything will shut down March 17.  No St.Patrick’s Day this year. The decorations for St. Patricks' celebrations that never happened would remain for months.  Our Underground debate as to whether we should meet next week at Tom’s is now moot.  All that’s left now is Monday night. I head to the Gate, but it’s already closed. I check MacAleer’s, the old NYPD blue police bar, just in case. Find some friends there. We share a St.Patrick’s Jameson and Guiness and that’s it. By morning the world as we knew it was gone. Coronavirus world had begun. We figured it wouldn’t be long. Hell, the president said he wanted full churches on Easter. 

It’s been a year. The vaccines are happening. Day by day, door by door, slowly reopening. Some doors will never reopen. What we will be remains to be seen. It’s been a year. A year of living in Coronavirusworld. 

Living in coronaviriusworld 254: Third Sunday in Lent, WInter lingers on..

 3/5

RBG visits our local Venezulean coffee shop

On Saturday, the NewYork City Presbytery held its fifth "virtual" meeting. And after all this time, there are still serious glitches. The Moderator running the meeting vanishes into cyber space and as Moderator Elect, it falls to me to step in and take over.  So much for our rehearsal and carefully worked out script.

Our family from across the country enjoys our weekly gatherings in my mother's ZOOM room.  If we get the last meeting of the day, we can usually stretch it beyond the allotted 15 minutes. Its the most we've all been in the some place at the same time since her 90th birthday party almost 3 years ago. But I still want to know when I can go see her in person. 

the "Relics"

Pat O

After four months,  Bar 9 has opened up for live music again.  I have to go do that. It takes getting used to.  Maybe it can last this time.

3/6

And the Beverley congregation gathers on "conference call" once again...here's what I had to say:

SO it’s that time of year when we start to get a little impatient. We’re stretching towards spring, but you still wake up and it’s under 30. The winter will linger…I spent five days in Florida…I’d get up first thing and put on my shorts and t shirt and walk for half an hour in the sun and then sit and have my breakfast by the pool. I fully intended to keep my prebreakfast walks going when I came back home but the first morning I woke up and it was 25 degrees, I’m like, uh, nooo….we’re straining towards spring…winter lingers on..

We’ve had our vaccinations or are waiting for our vaccinations, or just trying to figure out how to get them. We open more an more and yet…still….I sat in ballparks at 20% capacity …everyone in masks…no cash handling…only cards...we’re back but we’re not and just saying we are, like Texas or Mississippi, doesn’t make it so..we’re straining for spring…winter is lingering on…yesterday was our 5th virtual Presbytery meeting…

We begin to get impatient…

Well…talk about impatient…let’s talk about Jesus…in today’s gospel lesson, he flat out loses it.  He walks into the temple, turns over tables of money changers, scatters their coins and drives out all the sheep and cattle with a whip!  What happened to gentle Jesus meek and mild?

This is one of the few gospel stories that is in all 4 gospels. SO you figure something like this had to have happened. But check out the differences…they matter. In the other gospels, this event happens at the end of Jesus’ ministry, after his triumphant entry into Jerusalem. And becomes the kind of last straw that seals his fate with the religious authorities. 

In John, it’s at the very beginning of his ministry, right after he turns the water into wine at the wedding at Cana in Galilee. It's is this “cleansing the temple” that defines his ministry. 

Note a couple of other things…he drives out the cattle and sheep, not the people.  In the other gospels, he accuses the vendors of cheating, of creating a den of thieves in the temple. But not in John. What’s going on?And why is he so mad?

First, what are they doing? Any good worship service at the temple requires sacrificing animals, actually a sheep. But for those of lesser means, a dove will do.  And to pay for these, people can’t use they regular money because their empire money has portraits of Caesar on it, not kosher, so they have to trade their empire money for temple money. If the temple is going to exist at all, they need people doing these jobs. The gift shops are needed. 

Again, why is Jesus upset? Not because they are dishonest.

First, there is the issue of exploitation. The cost, even just for doves, was just too high.

Second, this whole system of sacrificing animals puts a barrier between the people and God.

And finally, peoples' desire to be in relationship with God has become monetized and is being used for material gain.

In John, Jesus is not saying they are being dishonest, he’s saying the whole idea is wrong. You don’t need to be killing animals to make God happy. You don’t need special rituals or even a priest standing between you and God, And you sure better not be trying to sell a connection to God. 

In a sentence, Jesus is saying you don’t need the temple. 

They don’t understand what he’s saying about the temple. Which leads to a conversation of classic misunderstanding. It's taken 46 years to build,  He’s going to do a complete reboot in 3 days?

What Jesus is saying is at the very center of what we celebrate at Christmas, the incarnation. God becoming human. And if God is present in Jesus, if God abides in Jesus, that’s all you need. Don’t need no temple. Nor St. Peter’s Basilica, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, St.John the Divine,Riverside, 5th Avenue Pres or Brick. You just need Jesus. Follow me? No wonder he upset people.

Certainly from Oral Roberts' prayer cloths, endowed stained glass  windows, we keep finding ways to sell peoples’ desire to get close to God. 

So I’d like us to ask some questions of ourselves on this Sunday.

1. What tables would Jesus overturn today? Can you name them?
2. What barriers do we put up between people and God?  How can we begin to deconstruct them?
3. To what extent has our church been monetized, that is, what happens when a church is completely dependent on rental income, say? 
4. Jesus drives out the sheep and cattle. The vendors remain. Probably pretty shaken, but still there. What happens next? What does he say to them? Could we find ourselves comfortable worshipping with money changers and animal sellers? Catholic priests? (Rabbis? Imams?)

This message is especially valuable in coronavirusworld. We don’t need to be in our building to feel close to God. We can see each other on screens and hear each others’ voices over the phone and can feel God’s presence in our midst.

Jesus has done a radical thing.  He’s taken away every barrier between us and our God. We don’t have to go any special place or perform any special ritual…God is with s…Jesus is all the temple we need..

During our season of waiting…during our season of straining towards spring, towards release from the captivity and exile of covid, let us seek to remove any barriers we may have place between our self and others, our self and knowing that our house and every house can be the house of God if we only can be open to it. Jesus is all the temple we need. ‘

Amen…..

Our family gathers from across the sea again. My oldest son is growing more and more restless with Germany's complete lockdown. For fewer and fewer discernible reasons. Texas looks more appealing to him all the time. We can't believe it's been since a year ago August since we've seen our grandchildren. 

                                                  ****

13The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. 15Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. 16He told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” 17His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” 18The Jews then said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” 19Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” 20The Jews then said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?” 21But he was speaking of the temple of his body. 22After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.

Living in Coronaviriusworld 253: Baseball in Coronavirusworld

 2/28

How it is these days

It’s been almost a whole year since I’ve sat inside a ballpark and watched a real baseball game with real people. March 7th, 2020…Bradenton, Florida. Pirates and Yankees, my two favorite teams. The beginning of my last week of what was. The last week BC…before Corona.  But that’s another story still to be told.

Ed Smith Stadium

I’m in Sarasota. It’s sunny and 85 degrees. Opening day of the 2021 Spring Training Grapefruit League season. I find a $12 parking spot and walk to Ed Smith stadium enjoying its Spanish mission style exterior. Then it’s time for  baseball in coronavirusworld. 

You can only buy tickets in “pods.” Only entry by digital ticket. I came early expecting an opening day giveaway but none because of hand contact issues. Pandemic “heroes” will be honored before the game and the first pitch will be thrown and star-spangled banner sung virtually on the scoreboard. No programs are sold….hand contact again. So for the first time ever I keep score on folded paper towels from the restroom.

play ball!

Some things are still the same. You can still buy a crab cake sandwich like back in Baltimore. The seats come from Camden Yards in Baltimore. The Orioles…like the Yankees…will wear their traditional home whites instead of  spring training orange and black. When Trey Mancini steps unto bat after missing a year to colon cancer, he gets a standing ovation from all the fans and both teams. And he lines a single to center for another ovation.

a visitor from Baltimore...

It’s strange to be in a park a quarter full. Everyone in masks. But still it's baseball. After a miserable 2020 season, I see Greg Polanco homer to left and the new young star, KeBryan Hayes, who I’ve been watching in Florida (and twice in Trenton) the last three years leg out a triple to the deep left corner. In 2019 I saw him hit a walk off grand slam against the Red Sox. By mutual agreement, they end the game after 8 innings.  

It’s been a year. It’s coronavirusworld. But it’s baseball and I’m there. 

3/1

Sun Skyway

I’ve crossed over the Sun Skyway Bridge, which always terrifies me…..I always feel I will sail off the top and wind up in the water….and made my way to Dunedin. Here the modern TD Ballpark is nestled in a cozy neighborhood. I find a friendly woman who offers a place on her lawn for $5. Lots of the same issues here. I shouldn’t be surprised to find no giveaways and once again, no programs. This time I brought along my own paper. I make good use of the sunscreen stations. No standing around, you must proceed to your seat. Which is the only place you are allowed to eat or drink. Or take off your mask. (Only while actively eating or drinking…) And I notice after I use the hand rail for my climb up to my row, the usher immediately wipes it down. Like Sarasota, 75% of the seats are cut off from use with plastic ties. 

There are fewer people in Dunedin. They are a Canadian team and their fans are cut off by our closed border. 

pregame ritual

That same closed border is going to keep the Jays in Dunedin to open their regular season. Both O Canada and the Star Spangled Banner sr once again rendered virtually. 

The top and coming Blue Jays and prospect laden Pirate play to a 2-2 tie with Pirates’ centerfield candidate Tony Alford homering to center. Like obj game of a minor league double header, this game ends after 7.

3/2

LeCom Park

Finally a game in Bradenton, the Pirates’ spring home for over 50 years. McKechnie Filed at Le Com Park. The original Spanish mission style ballpark and the second oldest ballpark to Boston’s Fenway still in use. I look for my regular parking place at the Daily Bread Soup Kitchen and stop at the Darwin Brewery. There’s a pop up Korean barbecue outside which is the best ball game lunch I had anywhere. Korean tacos. 

How far to....

Of course, no giveaways. One of my prized possessions is a "spring training” coffee mug from 2019. But the contact concern wipes that out. Again no programs and I really do not understand the issue here. But surprise! There are scorecards on request! I could hug them. But clearly not. One more unexpected cost of covid…no Iron City.  The reduced seating  capacity means fewer beers…too cost prohibitive for Iron City to ship out down from Pittsburgh.  I will miss that taste of home…907 miles away, the sign says. 

opening day at LeCom

Today the lowly Tigers are whacking the Pirates pitchers around and only a double by Ke’Bryan to deep center and the second homer in three days by non-roster free agent Todd Frazier stand out. And today’s game, on a perfect sunny day, ends after 5 like a rain out game. I find these early endings, especially 5, to be annoying and a bit of a cheat.  I’m trying to understand the reasoning . Part of it has to do with the greatly reduced number of players allowed in the dugout. But still…you know?

Time for one more Korean taco and  Korean iced coffee from K-Bap Barbecue  on the way home.  If I squinted my eyes a little, I could almost feel like normal.  I’m sure the Pirates’ performance is a good indicator of what the regular season will look like.  It’s still coronaviriusworld. But it’s baseball.  And like a runner taking a lead off third, we’re getting closer all the time. Not home yet, but getting there.