Johnny Lowe

Posted Tuesday, February 27, 2007

*62 on the boards and in your hearts, I was born into a maternal Brooklyn Dodgers family in Greenpoint, Brooklyn in Nineteen Hundred and ...... yeah .... Sixty Two. Dodgers' fans one and all, until, you know, they split. Later, in my own lifetime, extended family functions would bring the smirking faces of aunts, uncles, and cousins from such far-flung locales as Canarsie, Staten Island, and Weehawken; Yankee fans, the lot of them. In our household, though, it was the Metsies and I had my "Nana" and "Aunt Marion" to thank for that. Mom is still relatively well, enjoying retirement and all its nuisances in lovely St. Lucie West, just moments from the Mets' complex. (I get over there when I can, Ma, okay?). Mom's famous recipes for meatballs, macaroni gravy, white clam sauce, pasta fagiola (pasta-vazool back in the day), friggadellas, and zeppole can be purchased at the concessions stands.

My Dad may not have known which end of the baseball bat to hold, until I actually showed him scarcely hours before his managerial debut for my fifteen year-old team. Seems the league had read him the "we're short volunteers and may need to contract a team" speech until he acquiesced. It was a fun, exciting, great and mediocre season all at once and I cherish his memory more each season for having the brass stones to step up at something which he admittedly knew nothing about. "I said 'yes' so all the kids could play" he would tell me many years later. It's why I've become a Little League volunteer Umpire myself. And if you're not doing something positive in your community, you're part of the problem - so Zark off!

I live with my wife, because we seem to like it that way, and four year-old son, Asher, in Cape Coral, Florida (just Google it). I am currently involved full-time in promoting the peaceful overthrow of the established American two-party Republican form of Government. And if that doesn't work maybe we'll all move to Norway. Can I get Met games in Norwwy?

I've endured a grueling twenty-year ordeal of shedding vices, so I'm a little cranky. Just kidding.

No, really.

 

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