My father’s relationship with video players began because he loved me.
He bought a video recorder and player in 1982. My father was frugal, more patient than impulsive. Video recording was a new technology and very expensive at the time. My dad was naturally attracted to mechanical gadgets, but not, by nature, an early adopter of the latest craze in electronics. He usually waited for the price to come down before he indulged.
The primary reason he bought that cutting edge video tape player was because I was teaching a college level class, while attending graduate school in Boston, which had been videotaped. A method I had developed as a student teacher was being recognized and excerpts from the taped session were being presented as part of a symposium on teaching effectiveness. I was given a personal copy of the videotape of my entire class session on VHS format. I told my proud parents about the tape but at that time I had no way to view it myself let alone share it with them.
Knowing of its existence, my father went out and bought a video player so that we could view it together when I came home for Christmas. The VHS tape of me teaching was the first tape in his collection. He had this initial reason, but he recognized there was additional value in making the purchase. He would be able to collect video tapes of classic movies he loved, recording “for free” from television, and playing them back the same way he collected vinyl recordings of the music he loved to play on his stereo system. And, he could save and share these tapes with me when I was home for a visit.
And, as Bogie said to Louie in Casablanca, “It was the start of a beautiful friendship.”
In the late 1980s, there were small local video stores where you could go to rent videos. You would pay a fee and get a membership card and then be able to rent feature movies on VHS tapes. I had paid for a membership card and could rent recent first-run movies that were being sold on video, but not yet shown on TV, for a three-day rental limit. My father didn’t have a membership. He still preferred to tape older movies off of broadcast TV and had the patience to wait. He treated me to older classics and I treated him to new releases on tape.
By this time, I was back in Columbus, working full-time, and no longer living in my parent’s house. I would rent new movies for the week and share them with my dad. He would often return the movies to the video store for me because his schedule in retirement was more flexible. At that time, I traveled out-of-town for my job and worked long hours when I was in town so there wasn’t much opportunity for us to get together to watch movies as we used to. Video tapes went back and forth between us.
And we still would talk about the movies we both watched on our own when I would come by and sit with him at the bar he had built-in his basement for entertainment. We would listen to his records playing on his stereo in the background while talking: “Did you like that story?” “Did you notice this or that?” “What did you think of his or her performance?”
Back and forth…we tossed the ball.
I remember something extraordinary that happened during this period of time. It haunts me to this day. But I believe it is supposed to.
One Friday, I stopped by the local video store and rented the movie Field of Dreams on VHS. The original release, starring Kevin Costner, had been a first-run feature showing in theatres in 1989, but I had not seen it. Since it was a new release, there was a three-day rental limit. I had something to do that Friday and Saturday, so, I remember dropping the movie off at my parents’ house, figuring my father could watch it first, and then I could watch it myself on Sunday when I was free.
Early that Sunday afternoon, my dad called me on the phone.
“What are you doing?” he asked me.
I don’t remember what I was doing. I was probably feeling tired when he called. I had worked at my stressful job all week and had been tied up with some commitment on that Friday and Saturday. I was probably catching up on paperwork, doing laundry or cleaning, or possibly even just being lazy, trying to recharge my batteries for the week ahead. And, probably I told him the truth when he asked what I was doing. I am sure he had already contemplated my unavailability. Since I hadn’t called or stopped by my parents house to pick up the movie by this time, he had figured out that I was probably not going to set aside the time to watch it.
“Field of Dreams is a three-day rental. It needs to be returned by midnight.” he told me.
“Did you watch it?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Okay, well, why don’t you just go ahead and return it. If you thought it was a good one, I’ll re-rent it and watch it when I have more time, and then we can talk about it.”
“No. I want to come to your house and watch it with you.”
“You mean today…right now?”
“Yes. Can I come?”
It is hard to say what I was feeling at that moment. I remember I was caught off guard by this suggestion. It seemed somewhat out of the blue. This was unusual behavior on his part to come to my house just to watch a movie.
Ordinarily, he wouldn’t just come by or drop in for a visit to my house in the easy way that I often came home to my parents’ house. Typically, when my father came to my house, it was to fix something or help me with some project. Usually, he came with my mother. Normally, I had to ask him to come, and most of the time, when I did, I had some need; or if he had something in mind to do for me, he would have my mother call to see if it was okay if they stopped by, so he could take care of whatever repair or improvement he had planned.
We didn’t just”hang out” at my house they way we did at his house where I grew up. So, I am sure I was surprised at the oddity of this request.
I was probably feeling a little annoyed, thinking that he was upset with me for spending good money to rent the movie, and then letting the deadline expire without watching it; and he didn’t like to see me to wasting my money like that. I was also probably feeling a little discomfort about not having my house in ship-shape order for him to visit because I knew my father liked things neat and tidy. Weary from the daily grind of climbing my early career ladder, I probably didn’t really feel like watching a movie right then because if I had felt so inclined, I would have driven there that morning to retrieve it.
But when I didn’t come by and I didn’t call, my father called me.
He wanted something. That was unusual. My father didn’t want many things. He wanted to watch a movie with me. Now. We had watched hundreds of movies together before. So, it didn’t strike me as something earth-shattering or particularly significant in the greater scheme of things. But, I didn’t ask him why he was so compelled to have to watch this with me now. I followed my heart and just said, “yes.”
“Come on over.”
And I am sure I hurried to pick up my place, polishing the outside of the apple, in the twenty minutes it took him to drive there.
He came alone that day. My mom didn’t come along. When I opened my front door, he was carrying the videotape with him in his hands, wrapped in the video store bag.
I am sure we had a hug because we always did. But there wasn’t a lot of conversation. He didn’t comment about the crumbs of dirt on the rug or piles of paperwork pushed to one side on the table. He had come there for a purpose.
“We’ve got a movie to watch.”
The TV set I owned was 19-inch portable color model that sat on a small storage cabinet with doors in the corner of my living room. Not exactly the ideal set-up for a shared movie screening. My TV had the old-style picture tube technology, long before flat screen dimension or high-definition quality.
The VCR I had to show the tape was a large, heavy old-style top loader, on which you pushed a button and the loading compartment rose up to allow you to insert the tape. It was, in fact, that first player my father had purchased to view my teaching tape. He had given it to me for my place when he replaced it with a newer model for my parents’ home.
My father put the tape in the player and kept control of the remote.
We had watched movies together at home for as long as I can remember. And when we watched movies at home, we didn’t talk during the movie being shown. We waited for a commercial break. Later, with video tapes, we would pause to take a break or discuss something, and then press play to continue. So, we watched movies as you would in a theatre.
For this viewing, I was sitting on my green couch and my father sat on one of the straight-backed wooden chairs at the dining table across the room from me. My parents had given me the couch for my house when they replaced theirs with a newer one. I am sure we both had drinks to sip on as we watched but no popcorn.
The movie began, and from the start of it, I noticed that my father was watching it, but more so, he was watching me watch it.
As the film’s story was unfolding, since I was watching for the first time with my dad, I remember picking up on certain details that I recognized as being meaningful to him along the way. So, my mind was engaged the same way it always was. Do I see what he sees?
Field of Dreams is about baseball.
So, yes, I understood his love of baseball.
My dad played a lot of sports: He played football, basketball, baseball, ran track and threw the shot-put; he could play volleyball, horseshoes, golf; he enjoyed swimming, ping-pong, darts, pool, bowling. But I knew, most of all, my father loved baseball.
He had been a very good baseball player. I knew he could hit, field, and run well into middle age and had played for recreation on fire department teams. He had played as a kid and in high school earned a letter. He batted “leftie,” even though he was right-handed. It was a trait I inherited from him. Both of us did everything else right-handed, but we both swung baseball bats and golf clubs as lefties.
I had collected baseball cards when I was a kid just like my dad had done. I wish I still had mine. I really wish I still had his! I had read books about Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, and Mickey Mantle. We had talked about these players. My dad and I had shared a love for the Cincinnati Reds and enjoyed watching the Big Red Machine together, when Johnny Bench, Pete Rose, Dave Concepcion played, and Sparky Anderson was the coach.
He loved watching baseball on TV. He took his vacations in October when he was still working as a firefighter, so he could enjoy the World Series uninterrupted. He liked to root for the underdog and always preferred when it was a good match-up and went seven games to determine the winner.
In Field of Dreams, a voice from a dream tells Kevin Costner’s character, Ray: “If you build it, he will come.” Even though this suggestion seems like a crazy thing to do and everyone thinks he is crazy for doing it, and while he is doing it, he, himself, is not exactly sure why he is following through on it, Ray proceeds to build a baseball field in his Iowa corn field.
So, yes I understood my father’s love of baseball fields.
My dad had bought a conversion van after he retired. One of his dreams was that he and my mom and disabled sister might take off and travel to all the major league ball parks in that van during his retirement years. But it never happened. He died too soon to accomplish this. As it happened, I inherited his van and I drove it for many years but never to a ball park.
The only ball parks I know of that he went to in his life were the ones in Cleveland and Cincinnati, Ohio. He may have gone to Wrigley Field in Chicago or over to Pittsburgh to see the Pirates when he was young, or he may have caught a game in Kansas when he was in the army, I am not sure.
I am sure of this: When I lived in Boston, I got us tickets and took him and my mom to Fenway Park for a Red Sox game. We saw Carl Yazstremski (Yaz) play in one of his final games that day. It was a dream come true for my dad. He enjoyed every moment and took it all in like Charlie Bucket with his golden ticket getting his tour of the Wonka Chocolate Factory. I realized that at the time. It was a present for both of us.
Just as I was aware how my father was watching me watch this movie on that Sunday in 1989 and he knew that I “got it.”
Back and forth…we tossed the ball.
In Field of Dreams, Ray Liotta plays Shoeless Joe Jackson, baseball’s anti-hero, one of the disgraced White Sox accused of fixing the 1919 World Series, the subject of John Sayles Eight Men Out, another baseball film my father and I had both watched, but not together.
So, yes, I understood how my father could relate to the character of Shoeless Joe.
Sure, he liked to root for an underdog and he empathized with the impact of Shoeless Joe’s fate, being part of something bad that happened and being banned from playing the game he loved to make an example of him. When his baseball life was ruined, Shoeless Joe had to live on without it, and his tragic fate spawned grassroots legend and rumored sightings–like the ghost of Elvis—Joe supposedly wandered around in disguise trying to get in a game.
As I watched the movie with my dad, I wondered if it was Shoeless Joe’s story again that he had wanted me to see with him? Was there some new detail here not to be missed?
My father didn’t dream of being a fireman when he was a boy. I am certain he didn’t stand up in any class and state he wanted to be an appliance repairman either. I’m sure he had youthful dreams of being a professional athlete.
The circumstances of his life dictated that he could not afford to attend college to play football or take the opportunity to join even a minor league baseball team. His fate was set and he accepted it: That he must go to work to support his family; first, the one he was born into; and after that, the family of his own he created with my mother. He had to live on without it.
The circumstances of his life did not change the fact that he was talented player. He was an All-City center on his high school football team, playing to this award-winning level along side future OSU Buckeye and Heisman Trophy winner Howard “Hop-a-Long” Cassidy.
One day, when I was a young girl, “Hop” was in town and drive by our house and stopped in to have a visit with my dad. I knew he was a famous person but he and my dad stood there in our yard talking as any old friends would, laughing and catching up with each other.
As he was leaving, he bent down and had a word with me: “I want you to know something. your dad was a great football player. He was tough; he made me look good when we played. He was better than me. He just didn’t get the breaks I did.”
And when my father died, Howard Cassidy called my mother to talk with her personally. He remembered my father with all due respect.
So, I knew this detail. But I knew my father’s real passion was baseball.
And I am certain he could have been a serious contender if he had been able to follow that path, and not just because he was my dad and I idolized him. When he was drafted into the army in the 1950s, there was no war to fight. He played on the army’s baseball team. That was his peace-time cause. When he came home from the army, he had other responsibilities to take on and he had to live on without it.
My father was watching me watch Shoeless Joe taking his rightful place on Ray’s field of dreams and he knew that I “got it.”
Back and forth…we tossed the ball.
In Field of Dreams, Kevin Costner’s character, Ray, has lost his father in death.
So, yes, I understood that same loss resonated within my father.
In the movie, we learn that Ray gave up playing baseball and his course of action in life had disappointed his father and left them estranged. They had not reconciled nor had they come to any understanding when Ray’s father died. That story was not the same as my father’s. But the important influence and shadow of a lost father figure was a defining force in his life.
My father’s dad died when he was only five years old. It was a sudden death and tragic–he had died of toxemia–blood poisoning–from an injury and there was no penicillin at that time to save his life. My dad had very few actual memories of his father. He remembered his father taking him along for a ride in a small airplane at a local airfield sometime around 1937-38. He had a view from above which would leave a lasting impression even on a small boy.
My father’s family nickname was Sonny. It came from his father who had called him ‘Sonny Boy.” For my father’s older sister, he also had a nickname: Buppy Doll. And, she was ever after called Buppy or Bup; she was Aunt Buppy to me.
My father was told by his mother that he inherited, not his looks, but many of his father’s qualities–demeanor, strength, stance, and mechanical abilities. He missed having a father and it changed the course of his life. As the oldest son, he had to do his best to take his father’s place without knowing him as I had known my dad.
My father kept watching me watch Field of Dreams from his seat across the room from me.
And I am sure he could tell by this point, I was caught up in the movie’s magical story. I was occupied with so many thoughts and feelings as it progressed. It’s structured as it is to keep you guessing…what is the meaning of all this?
In Field of Dreams, Burt Lancaster plays a character called Moonlight Graham.
As we watched the film together that day, this segment was the one I believed had captivated my father enough to want to watch the film with me now. This part of the story represents a point where dreams and fantasy collide with reality and common sense.
And yes, I understood my father could relate to that.
The details of the Moonlight Graham story line are reminiscent of George Bailey’s plight in It’s A Wonderful Life. Just as George Bailey’s dreams keep being thwarted by circumstances of his life, Graham’s youthful dream of facing a major league pitcher for his up at bat is interrupted by fate. We learn how he carried on with his life, gets married and becomes a doctor, but when his wife is sick, he cannot save her. And, this is his tragedy.
In the parallel fantasy universe the film creates, the young boy, Archie Graham, is regenerated and is given another chance to have his dream play out on Ray’s field of dreams. And, we feel happiness for him as his dream is about to come true. Until, suddenly, Ray’s daughter, Karin, chokes on a hot dog in the stands. Graham, who became a doctor later in his life cannot ignore the real-life crisis and must give up his youthful dream again and step off the field to save Karin’s life.
His sacrifice is selfless and heroic. But when he steps across the magical line and transforms from the young boy to the older man again, we understand that he has lost his dream for eternity and that he cannot escape his own destiny to serve mankind.
At this point, I cried. My father was watching me watch and he saw that tears were streaming down my face. He knew that I “got it.” I was convinced that this was the moment in the film that he wanted us to see together. How you make a personal sacrifice to save another and you walk away knowing it was the right thing to do. But you feel the pain of the loss.
Back and forth…we tossed the ball.
All through this movie, you think that there is going to be some greater cosmic significance to the “if you build it, he will come” message. There is, of course, the idea that the voice Ray hears is God’s but it’s left unclear since the players keep asking Ray “Is this Heaven?”
The James Earl Jones character interprets the experience as some sort of political or societal calling: “People will come. Ray.”
But, to me it felt that it was not meant to be so much a universal message as it was a personal one. Like The Wizard of Oz comes down to: that there’s no place like home and you don’t have chase rainbows that you may find your heart’s desire in your own backyard.
It was not that people will come to see their dead heroes play again–a team of all-stars as you would gather to see in heaven. But that, for every one individual, there could be some personal story or reason for coming there to see what plays out for them and what they are able to see on this field of dreams.
Because in the end, Field of Dreams is about magical field–a version of heaven–where a boy could play a game catch with his father. Not Shoeless Joe. Not Moonlight Graham. Ray’s father, John. That’s the “he” who comes in the end. Ray gets the chance to see his father again and have a game of catch on the field of dreams. It’s a wonderful scene.
I was engulfed in tears through the ending, letting the significance and importance of what I had gathered from the story overcome me as it did. And my father had tears in his eyes too.
“Dad I love this movie.”
“Yes, I love it, too.”
After the movie was over and the end credits had rolled, there wasn’t much more discussion that I can recall. Maybe we talked about why we liked it some; I am sure we did. But, at the time, the experience felt as ordinary as any other time we watched a good movie we both loved together. We had done this many times before. We would do it more times again before he died.
Back and forth…we tossed the ball.
It was getting late and my dad had to get home for Sunday dinner. I am sure we had a hug because we always did. And I know I thanked him for bringing the movie so we could watch it together and he thanked me for treating him. He returned the movie to the video store for me on his way home.
I didn’t spend much time thinking more about it at that time. I am not sure we ever talked much about it again.
Later, this viewing became more important to me than I ever imagined. I now feel it was more of a vision than a viewing. On that day we watched Field of Dreams together, maybe I did not “get it” as I thought.
So focused as I was on the forest of meaning the movie had for my father and how he related to it based on the circumstances of his own life, I had overlooked the tree; I missed the curve a life can take. I did not consider the message there was for me. Something my father wanted me to understand.
How I could find him one day. But I didn’t understand that then or even after he died. I still needed his help.
And, I believe that I got it.
A Blog of My Own by Patti 