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Arrt Pollock
keeps us updated
Date:
12/31/2006 6:37:47 P.M. Central Standard Time
From: ArtPollock
To: galanza@ccsd.ws,
Saldonreyn, flicker16@msn.com, bmiller@hghs57.org
Boy, did I love reading
about those Chappaqua and Little League memories. Here's the time sequence and
my memory:
Dad gave up the minors and began teaching/coaching in Ashland, VA
in 1949 or 1950.
Salaries were so low that he returned to Chappaqua to try
to work in NYC and there he got to participate in starting up the New Castle Little
League. (He returned to Va. and the teaching/coaching he loved in the fall of
1953 and then came to Fla. after the 1954-1955 school year was over.)
I was
born 01/24/47, just before Dad's graduation from Colgate, so you can do the math
from then to those first New Castle Little League days. HOWEVER, even at age 5
or 6, I recall still today the Lions (in blue?), the Bears, Owls, and Rams. Were
the Rams green and Owls orange? Once, several of you came to the Scheer home in
which we were living (on Orchard Ridge Rd.). Looking down at your shoes and stuttering,
you respectfully asked if you could borrow some equipment to go down to the field
and practice on your own. Dad was thrilled you were so interested and motivated!
Dad
wore an inaugural New Castle Little League tee-shirt well into the sixties while
doing yard work here in Fla.
He loved those he played with and coached above
almost everything in life.
Bless all of you and thanks again!
You may certainly
forward this on to others or reprint in any form!
Happy New Year!,
ART
Chick's
son Arthur Pollock)
===================================================November
20,2006 I must report that Dad (Chick) is feeble, though he looks good and
his vital signs are great. The ALS seems to be progressing very slowly. He can
go from his chair to his bed right beside it and can navigate to the bathroom
via his walker, but we really have to get him to a standing position and, of course,
follow along behind him. The big brand-new news is that a bright, caring, energetic,
experienced woman of 52 has moved in with Dad and Mary as a full-time caretaker
and that is a true blessing to celebrate here at Thanksgiving time!
TV is Dad's
entertainment without the ability to talk to others. However, he enjoys visits
and the conversation around him. Obviously we are always talking to him!
Again,
heart, lungs, and brain remain good. (He has to write it on paper, and that's
a bit difficult for him to do coordination-wise, but he'll remind us of things
or come up with an item of trivia when our memories go blank.) It's just that
once-athletic body that's slowly deteriorating. None of us have an idea of a time
frame, but he's not in pain and seems to have adapted to his situation--making
the best of it. He may outlast us all!
Dad and Mary always enjoy getting U.S.
Mail if you have a chance to write: 165 Americana Ct. N.E., St. Petersburg, FL
33702. He is not able to talk, but often listens to people who call on the phone:
(727) 528-7212
Thanks for asking and caring and Happy Holidays!,
ART (son) August
18, 2006 - Latest about Chick
We just learned that the suspected TIAs
my Dad was having have now been diagnosed as ALS, Lou Gehrig's disease. Great
irony, considering that Lou was Dad's favorite. I think there were some eleven
N.Y.C. daily papers back when Gehrig died, and I am now in possession of the many
news clippings Dad cut out and kept upon the Iron Horse's death. Also, I have
an autographed Gehrig photo which my grandfather fetched for Dad when Lou was
working in New York City near the end of his life.
"I've been given a
bad break," Gehrig remarked in his famous farewell address, yet we more vividly
recall that he juxtaposed that comment with one that is the most famed portion
of the speech: "I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth."
Dad knew his health and quality of life were very poor. The agony for him, I believe,
has been in not understanding what was happening, why he is still here, and when
the end would come. Now he and we know more definitively. Not quite lucky, but
at least an answer which links him to someone he admired so. In a strange way,
I think he will be more at peace now until the end finally comes.
We'll appreciate
any prayers that he remain in as little pain as possible until the end arrives.
Thanks, love and peace,
ART July
20, 2006
Dad
is back at the nearby Carrington rehab center in St. Pete for more therapy, etc.,
and I have two good stories from there: First,
since Dad can't talk, I always visit with tales to entertain and update him.
Thinking this one might not have been news that his TV covered, I began to tell
him that the Postal Service is issuing four new stamps to honor baseball heroes.
Now only six months from age 60 myself, I could recall that Mantle, Greenberg,
and Campanella were three of the four to be honored. I just could not recall
the fourth player. Dad rolled his wheelchair over to his notepad and
wrote: Mel Ott. The news apparently had been on TV, but probably several
days before. Yet Dad remembered it. I see NO loss of mental capacity.
As for me . . . . Later that morning, at
10:30, he wrote me a note, saying that he wanted to go down the hall to therapy.
That confused me a little, for I had previously only seen the therapists
come to individual patient rooms to get patients and take them to therapy.
Well, I did roll down the hall with Dad to the therapy room, and there was a full
circle of men and women apparently getting ready for group therapy, which
Dad has obviously now joined. There were men and women in far worse shape
than Dad in that circle, and I'm sure that many of them had not done much athletically
over the course of their lives. But, you should have seen the look of glee
on Dad's face. He was mentally back on the practice fields of his Horace
Greeley High School (or on the various fields where he was a high school coach),
just as if it were time to do jumping jacks and sit-ups again. The
human spirit is a wonderful thing! |
