Kevin's Recipe

Kevin reminded me of something...

His recipe for giving future to our past:

1. Combine a couple events
2. Change the years
3. Add even more famous people or incredible happenings

When I was four—yes, people, get used to it. Chris is back, in all his tangential ways—when I was four, we went to (probably) John F. Kennedy Airport (formerly Idlewild) to see my grandparents off on a big trip. They were flying to (hold onto your hats, girls) California.

This was 1972. Still in the glory days of air travel, when whole families would travel to the airport to wait with grandparents at the gate until they boarded the plane. Lillian and Johnny were flying with their dear friends, Herman and Charlotte. In support of Herman and Charlotte were their grandchildren, John and Tara (was Tara even born? I think so). Along with Lillian and Johnny and Herman and Charlotte was the entire New York Mets baseball team. I don't know when it was first noticed that we shared the waiting area with the likes of Yogi Berra, but it was. The daughters and sons-in-law of the traveling grandparents were a-twitter and can we take a picture well I'm not going over there me neither are you kidding oh just give me the camera I'll do it. That was my mother. The brave soul who sidled up to the famous ballplayers and asked if they would take a picture with the boys. The boys meant us! John and me, the big four-year-olds. So we sat on the floor in front of all the Mets men in their suits, dress suits for travel. Mom took out the Polaroid. The BIG Polaroid. The one with the old-fashioned accordion looks that takes one picture at a time that you have to pull out of the cartridge and then peel off the film once the tiny, fun-to-play-with timer goes off.

My mom took two pictures. One with us in front of the entire team. One with the generous Kenny Singleton (who later went on to play for the Baltimore Orioles—shocked you didn't I? I know a thing or two about sports, yo) who squatted down to our level. The picture with Kenny Singleton came out real nice. The one with us in front of the suits was just that. Us in front of a bunch of suits. My mother had cut off all their heads!

To this day, we laugh about that picture. She's quick to defend herself with the fact that she was the only one with the nerve to approach the Mets. We're lucky to have gotten what we did. She did have the wherewithal to ask them all to sign an envelope that she pulled out of her purse. She keeps that envelope with Yogi's and Kenny's signatures along with the two pictures in a giant, falling-apart family photo album that we stumble upon from time to time.

I won't even start telling you about the day we saw Björn Borg at the airport. Maybe that was LaGuardia.