So I have been having a tough time lately. Don't worry, it's not that bad...but I am sadder than usual in the past few weeks. Three recent events have made me sentimental about the past and what has been loss.
The first event: Major League Baseball's Spring Training started a couple of weeks ago. It made me think of all the years I would look at the Grapefruit League schedule and the roster of the people in camp for the Montreal Expos. It was always fun as you never knew who would emerge as a potential superstar. I did that with a sick pleasure since the early 90s. That's when the whole "yearly fire sale" would take place on the Expos roster...yet they kept on producing emerging superstar after emerging superstar. From Grissom, to Walker, to Pedro, to Vidro, to Vlad, they always found a way to make the team exciting.
The second event: Duke Snider passed away last week. I know real baseball fans know him more as a great player on the Brooklyn/L.A. Dodgers but for me, he was one of the best announcers of all time. I would enjoy listening to him and Dave Van Horne on CFCF 600 Montreal do the play by play. I think about them as the best tandem of Expos announcers in history, although, there is something to be said for Rodger Brulotte and Jacques Doucette but I digress...Anyway Duke, to me, was the voice of the Expos.
The final event: the passport pictures I took were rejected and I need to do them yet again. The last time this happened, I was stuck in this country and not able to go see the last game of the Montreal Expos and the Olympic stadium. My grandmother was also sick then and there was a chance I might never see her alive again(luckily, I got to see her several times before she passed in 2006). I was so sad listening to the radio broadcast in French and English from my home here in the USA.
What does this have to do with sentimentality? I am fiercely loyal and always try to remember where I came from, including my heritage and my original home. Montreal is still my hometown, even if I have been gone for 12+ years. I think about it every single day of my life and all the things I miss about it. I read the Internet news, I try to listen to radio broadcasts on Sirius in French, and I am teaching my daughters to speak French, even though it is at times very tough because I am the only one who makes this effort daily. In some ways, it would make more sense to teach them Spanish but I want them to remember where they come from.
I have this guilt that takes a hold of me sometimes that is frightening. Why do I worry so much about keeping my native tongue alive? Why do I still feel sadness and pain when I think of the Montreal Expos? Why do I miss my friends and family in Quebec to the point that I feel guilty and worry that I will never make it "home" again? My home, after all, is here in the US, as my daughters and my wife all live here. I do consider this home but this is so... different...sometimes I just feel like I don't fit it...(To be continued)
No comments:
Post a Comment