“Is this heaven?”

I’ve managed to come across on cable, the ending of the movie: “Field of Dreams” quite often, and frequently twice in the same day. I must have seen it at least 50 times, perhaps more than a hundred, and I’ve cried at the ending every time as I watch Ray say to his ghost father if he wants to have a catch. It’s a moment that drags me – usually willingly – into a crying jag often lasting for hours.

It’s as if the movie was made for me as much as the field was made for Ray. Perhaps when I go to heaven, I will find my father to have a game of catch once again and make amends and hope for restoration.

When I was very young, New York had three teams. My mother would live and die by Jackie Robertson and the boys of summer. Ebbets Field was just a subway ride away and we would get grandstand seats and watch the Dodgers play. I have no memory of it but I was told that I shook Robinson’s hand. He started his major league career the same year I was born and I suspect I was a year or two old when that happened. In those days, players would sign autographs and talk to you if you waited at the players’ entrance.

Dad was a Giant’s fan and if you remember the song “Talking Baseball,” I kind of drifted into the discussion of who was the best: Willie, Mickey or the Duke by the time I started school. Around the time I was five I declared myself to be a Yankees fan and I was taken to the stadium and watched Joe D in his last year and Mick as a rookie on the same field.

By the time I was in second grade, my life was turned upside down when my parents separated. I remember my mother taking me to see a double header in 1957 against the Kansas City (now Oakland) A’s. I know the Yankees won both games and some guy named Whitey Ford won one of them. But the highlight for me was when one batter hit a foul grounder along the first base line and the coach turned around, stuck his butt out and let the ball bounce off him. We were in the front row of the second deck and a ball was hit directly at me. I tried to grab it but it bounced off the fence with a clang that shook the seats we were in. I’ve gone to bed many nights thanking God that I didn’t catch the ball and break my hands.

After the game, we walked on the field and I went to the flagpole with the three monuments of Ruth, Gehrig, and Huggins.

Many years later, we went to opening day weekend when the Yankees opened their refurbished stadium. The year before, I took the ex to Shea Stadium where the Yankees played for a year. She hated it. “I hate to play games,” was her reason.

Dad would visit me every other weekend and we would frequently play a game of catch. I didn’t think much about it then, but I came to realize that dad was playing with only one functional arm. He wrecked his left arm while driving a taxi during the Depression. It was locked into place in front of his chest by doctors who had little choice if they wanted to save the arm. He had the guts to stand in there as I threw every ball as hard as I could. He frequently stopped the ball with his chest and I ragged him about not being able to handle my fastball.

In the movie, Ray sees his father as a strong young man rather than his memories of an older man who life had drained him of his strength. I too had never seen Dad like that and the tears start to shed about that time in the movie.

Earlier in the movie, Ray talks about how he and his father separated for a while and his dad had died before he was able to renew a relationship. It was the same way with me as I was in the Army and found out he was dying. I went home on a couple of weekends and met a man who was unable to recognize me. He was just too senile. I took a 30-day leave and he died during that time. I knew enough about his life that I asked the pastor of the local Unitarian church where he attended to conduct a graveside service.

I never got to tell him the things I needed to. I was more fortunate to have done so with my mother and got something of a healing about our relationship.

Baseball has always remained a part of my life in one way or another. I took my oldest son, John, to a couple of Mets games at Shea as part of a Royal Rangers Trip. And we visited the Baseball Hall of Fame together. We even had a few games of catch. But John just wasn’t interested in playing the game. And the other son, Matt, professed a hatred for the game.

 Once, I managed to get some tickets from my company to their corporate box seat. I took my friend, Bill, and his girlfriend to the game and by coincidence, it was Mantle's last game as he announced his retirement the day before.

But even after the boys grew up, I continued to go to Yankee Stadium a few times until Yogi was fired by Steinbrenner early into the season. While I rooted for them via Television and radio, I refused to go back to the Stadium until Yogi did.

I didn’t see another game until the year the ex and I separated. I had headed to Florida in an effort to figure out what the hell went wrong in my life. By the time I got there, she had already filed for a divorce. But I went to Legends Field (now Steinbrenner Field) and watched some spring training games. At one game, I received a replica ring of the World Series between the Yankees and the Mets.

I also got to go to a ticker tape parade the last time the Yankees won the Series. Though I barely saw the players, it was a very exciting day for me. I had always wanted to go to this unique piece of New York City culture. I thought of how much my father spoke of the parade they had for Charles Lindbergh, the massive parade at the end of the Second World War and when the early astronauts were honored.

My father has almost always been on my mind. At he end of the 2016 season, The Yankees had a bobblehead night for Roger Maris, my boyhood idol. I had to get one so I went to the new Yankee Stadium. There were only four games left in the season and the team was playing its rookies. I sat in the right field bleachers where I always watched Maris in that magical 1961 season. I saw a kid named Gary Sanchez hit one to the back of the second deck. My dad couldn’t figure out why I wanted to be in the 75¢ bleachers when we could have been sitting in the $4 grandstand seats. But I wanted to be near Roger. One day, he hit two home runs into the area near me, but it was too far away for me to try and catch the ball. But this time, I was prepared and brought a new catchers mitt that my aunt bought for me the previous day. Then Mantle hit a monster home run into right field. It was still climbing when it bounced off the wall behind the top deck in right field. If it had gone about 20 feet to the left, it would have been the only ball ever hit out of Yankee Stadium.

My companion, Emily, who was my senior prom date back in 1966, had never been to a major league game despite living in the shadows of the Polo Grounds, Ebbets Field, Yankee Stadium, Shea and City Field. So we went to a game last August. I watched this senior woman responded like a kid as I did way back then. Suddenly, she was watching every game on television, abandoning Judge Judy, Dr. Oz and similar programs until after the season ended. With pitchers and catchers reporting next week, I’m sure she’s going to plan a few visits with her grandchildren at the ballpark.

But going back to the reason I sob every time I see the movie, I have to ask myself if God is so infinite, he would design an afterlife for me that included my young, sober and youthful parents and my ex where I could play catch with my dad and somehow say the things I need to say to them.

Even if it’s in Iowa instead of Heaven.

Survival? Slim and none

Recently, I made a joke on Facebook about an unfunny subject. Trump has cancelled a nuclear weapons control treaty with Russia dating back to the Reagan era. I said I was seriously thinking about becoming a survivalist. A friend said I was one of the few who had survival skills. I replied that if she was referring to my life on the road living in a travel trailer and driving all over the country, I had constant supplies of fuel and food. I didn’t mention that virtually all of my money was in my bank and I could get it at any ATM. I also had nearly $20,000 in credit at that time.

But while I could survive an ecological disaster, such as a hurricane, I doubt that I could survive an EMP.

We don’t have to worry about a nuclear exchange. We don’t even have to worry about ICBM (intercontential) missiles. If you want to destroy America or any other nation, all you would need is about one-to-three IRBM (intermediate range) missiles. Fire them into space and explode the nukes over the east and west coasts and the Midwest and we’re dead without one person dying from atomic radiation and fallout is non-existent since fallout comes from the ground when a nuke explodes. It’s what creates all the smoke in a blast.

The result would be an EMP (electromagnetic pulse) that would destroy anything with a electronic chip or something that is plugged in.

Let’s look at what would happen.

Within one second of the blast, power would be gone everywhere. Your car would not work unless it was built in the 1980s. Because all those fancy things you have won’t work due to the dozens of chips that most cars have. The best time to blow up the nukes would be around noon…lunchtime. Imagine if you will that you work in New York City and lived in New Jersey or on Long Island. How would you get home? The trains and buses won’t work. The trains are electrified and even if you have a diesel engine, they use chips. Buses won’t work either. You will have to walk. You can’t even get cash because the ATMs won’t work. So unless you are in REALLY good shape, you won’t get home because very few of us can do even ten miles a day. If you see a bicycle, you will steal it, and chances are someone will try to steal it from you. Food supplies will dry up within a couple of days because stores and restaurants won’t get their deliveries. By the third day there will be food riots.

Are you a diabetic? You die when you run out of meds. If you use insulin, it needs refrigeration. About ten days is all you will last even if you have a year’s supply. Same thing for people with heart problems. If you have a pacemaker or other electronic implant, you would die within seconds of the blast as it shorts out. 

If you are subject to stress, chances are that would kill you.

Suppose you are in a hospital or nursing home? Without power, the environment would soon be fatal. There’s sealed windows but no climate control and germs would spread from the sickest patients sooner rather than later. How many health care workers would abandon their duties to care for their own? Bedridden people will foul the environment with waste and even other patients would probably not have enough water pressure to flush. Forget about babies and children.

Within a couple of weeks, we would have a very healthy population. But not for long. Flu would be pandemic and there would be no more flu shots, not to mention other vaccines. Adults who were vaccinated would be OK for a while, but those born after the blasts would have no immunity at all. If you say, cut your finger. You could die from infection. Eventually you would even run out of aspirin.

Mental hospitals and prisons would shut down and the most violent members of out society would be turned loose to loot, murder and otherwise rampage. Let’s say you are a perfectly respectable person. There is little, if any, food and your children are starving. Would you go searching in someone’s home? There will be people so desperate that they would kill you to get your food.

If you live in a climate that has winters, you could freeze to death. If you live in Florida, or other places where there is swampland, you’ll die from all the disease coming from mosquitoes – there will be nothing left within a week or so to treat it. Chances are even if you had a well-stocked pharmacy, junkies will rob it to feed their addiction before they die from withdrawal.

Same with the southwest as it reverts to desert, as the irrigation pumps won’t work.

Obviously, people will head for rural areas, seeking out farms for food. Good luck with that. Farmers use tractors and other machines that no longer work. Hungry raiders will kill all the livestock for food. And since there is no longer refrigeration, the animals’ rotting carcass will lie in the fields being fed on by flies. Care to share? The meat is diseased and you will die of food poisoning within a few days.

And there will be power struggles among the few survivors. There will be cults and other groups that we would consider nut jobs that will take over.

What is the government doing? Very little. Without communications, you won’t know. It’s entirely possible that the President and key people will be on Air Force One within minutes after those missiles are launched as AF-1 and every other plane in the air will crash. The only government you will deal with is a local one. Police, fire and rescue personnel will be your main government employees. But since currency is worthless, they will become volunteers.

So how will you survive? Become a “prepper.” Here’s what is required:

First, have enough food stored to last a year, in two places. You should have medicine and medical equipment to last a couple of years. If you can’t get enough prescription drugs from your doctor, don’t overlook your vet. Many animal and human medications are the same.  

In addition to your hoarding at home, You will need a place to “Bug out.” It will have to be rural where few know of its existence. And it will have to be well guarded and camouflaged. It will have to have a clean water source in addition to the thousands of bottles of water you will store there. You need to clear land for crops, and at least a two-year supply of seeds. Don’t overlook everyday essentials such as female sanitary needs, tissue and toilet paper. Laundry detergents for cleaning clothing and dishes are also necessary. Pack all the clothes you can and have clothes in all sizes if you have children. Have them anyway. You may need them.  Your “bug out” site shouldn’t be more than 90 miles from your home location, so you can reach it safely.

If at all possible, have it equipped with solar panels. DO NOT use wind turbines, as they will reveal you location.

And Bug out as soon as you can. The longer you wait, the more treacherous the roads become. Be prepared to kill people.

Be armed. You will eventually have to defend yourself. Have a pistol, rifle and shotgun with thousands of rounds for each weapon and every person. And train at local rages, even the kids.

You will need at least one vehicle – pre 1980s without any chips. You should have it constantly filled with gas and it has to be in top shape. Have new tires on each wheel and a new spare for each wheel as well. Have a new battery and a new back-up. Try to have a vehicle for everyone – licensed or unlicensed – who is capable of driving.

Equip all everyday vehicles you have with a “bug out bag”. That’s a bag or backpack that will include water, food and clothes to last long enough to walk home if your everyday vehicle dies from the EMP. Be sure to include shoes you can walk in. A woman in heels won’t be able to walk more than a few miles.

There are electronics you can save by placing them in metal containers such as ammo boxes that could insulate them from the EMP. Wrap them in towels to prevent short circuiting. Try to have at least 4 walkie-talkies that operate on the same frequency. E-Readers are essential. Pack them with lots of books – especially about pioneer skills. But also pack them with fiction and non-fiction books, music plus games. They can bring comfort and entertainment. Be sure to add chargers designed for cars. They can be modified to charge the readers. I said readers – at least three or more -- and the contents should be identical in regard to reference materials. Why? They might break or more likely need to be recharged while you are in the middle of reading something important. Take an old cell phone just in case service is restored. You may want to download some games for entertainment.  If you are able to get solar power, bring a laptop or two and lots of DVDs. But don't run the lights at night. It makes you much too visible.

OK, you get a general idea about what “prepping” is. But the most important thing is people. We live in an age where work skills revolve around the computer. People without other other skills could be useless. Yet the larger your group is, the easier it is to defend your bug out locale from marauders. First and foremost, be very careful whom you ask to join you. People who learn about your prepping but don’t want to join you will suddenly want to be a part of your plans when the shit hits the fan, but they haven’t done any prepping. You can’t afford to feed them. Keep your bug out local secret. If they insist on knowing, give them a false one in the opposite direction. Skills such as farming, carpentry, electricians, mechanics, plumbing and other skills are necessary. And having a nurse and/or EMT is a blessing. Military people will not only guard against outsiders but are usually disciplined enough to do other tasks. Most soldiers have a combat skill and another skill.

OK, I’ve just spent about 1700 words trying to give you an idea on how to survive an EMP attack. If this happens, perhaps 10 percent of the population will survive. I’ve deliberately created a horrible scenario because only the strong, smart and skilled will survive. And they will need to be all three. Two out of three ain't bad but won't survive, nor will our way of life.

As for me, l plan to go to the cellar with whatever I have stockpiled and wait to die. I’m too fucking old and too fucking sick to survive.

JUST AN AFTERTHOUGHT:
If this happened, it would end the threat of global warming for some time to come. Perhaps saving the human race would be something better than destroying the United States?