Cooperstown

September 2024

I should know by now that relying on expectations or preconceived notions is a sucker’s bet. As mine seem to be often grossly inaccurate or blown out of the water entirely. It would behoove me to encounter any new noun with a bit of background knowledge and understanding, but a completely blank slate as far as expectations go. Not just with regard to the people, places, and things I’ll be encountering, but also what my reactions or responses to them might be.

I recently spent five days in Cooperstown visiting the Baseball Hall of Fame (HOF) with specific intentions of grieving my father. As such, I had several expectations of how it would all go.

First, there were my expectations of the place - I’ve seen the Hallmark channel a time or two, so I have a handle on what upstate New York is all about. I know they have apples, some sprawling countryside, Bed & Breakfasts, and ruggedly sensitive hometown men waiting for stressed-out corporate women to come home for the holidays. And I was at least proximally aware that much of New York State is a vastly different place than its namesake city.

But as I made the 1.5-hour drive after sunset from Syracuse to Cooperstown, it became evident just how sparsely populated the rest of the state could be. Everything after exiting I-90 might as well have been a dark sky sanctuary. I struggled to see the road, let alone detect life or a sense of landscape. Then I checked into my motel, had a good night’s sleep, and enjoyed a slow morning.

I eventually walked outside to see my motel cozied up to a crystal blue lake beneath a sky to match it. Much different than it appeared on Google Maps during the planning phase of this outing. Additionally, Autumn was attempting to wrest the seasonal reigns from summer, displaying the occasional deciduous soldier adorned in scarlet or saffron foliage. Retaliating with a sun clinging to what was left of an arched path across the sky and midday temps still worthy of short sleeves, Summer had no intentions of giving up the ghost just yet. It was a gorgeous setting and a magnificent time to be there. I can’t even begin to describe how ever-loving charming the town itself was. All of that was quite unexpected.

Then there was my equally unanticipated response to it all. It somehow failed to register with me ahead of my arrival that this was the landscape of Kara’s home. While it’s a four-hour drive from Cooperstown to where she grew up in Pennsylvania, the surroundings I woke up to immediately conjured memories of visiting that place with her. I was standing in Appalachia, staring at ancient rolling hills carpeted by similarly rounded tree canopies.

A setting that induced a broad set of emotions, as the previous two times I visited the region, were early in our relationship when I came home to meet her friends and family, and when I came back to memorialize her with that same group of people. I was in Cooperstown to work some things out with my father. However, as my lake-fixated eyes softened their focus and my thoughts began to wander, I became suddenly aware that I would have more to contend with on this trip than previously anticipated.

I wasn’t sure what to do, but thankfully, I had intentionally left my schedule wide open. I had loosely planned on visiting the HOF at least one or two of the days I was there but I also wanted to enjoy the town and its surrounding outdoor amenities. Still stunned a bit by the morning’s realizations, I decided to assess and acclimatize by just walking the streets of Cooperstown that day. Which, unfortunately, quickly devolved into a progressive unhappy Happy Hour. I returned to my room for the evening where I continued in vain the attempt to anesthetize. Something I’m not proud to admit I’ve been doing more than I should again during my summer of upheaval.

In addition to the need to rehydrate, the next morning I woke with the desire to focus on and address whatever needed to be addressed with Kara. I would not be able to do what I had come there to do until I did. I’m getting better at understanding and engaging in non-linear, cumulative grieving.

So I went into her woods to be with her. I spent all day communing with the trees and listening to her wind whispers. I would eventually eat, have a good sleep, and awake again at peace and ready to refocus.

I began to well up the moment I pulled open the doors at the HOF. I suppose at least some expectations were being realized on this trip. I reverently explored the museum, attempting to fight back tears the whole time with diversifying degrees of success. I may or may not have bawled like a baby in the darkness during that little “Generations of the Game” film they show every hour.

On a side note - Somehow, I was the only person walking through those wings that day fighting off “allergies” - the only one. Nobody else there was moved by the history and the meaning of the place!? Nobody else was missing their dad!? Might I add, that James Earl “Field of Dreams” Jones had just passed the day before! Incredible…. Automatons. I digress.

I would spend all day communing with hallowed halls and listening to the voices of memories that were and never will be. That visit was exactly what I wanted, delivering everything I had hoped for and then some. But there would be more.

I became aware of the fact that I still hadn’t eaten that day and sought to remedy the situation. Wanting to be as away from the fray as possible while still accomplishing that goal, I opted for a sleepy local’s tavern separated by two blocks from the main drag. I sat at the far end of the bar and ordered a beer and a pub dinner from the establishment’s thoroughly underwhelmed barmaid.

As I eagerly awaited the tepid delivery of a loaded chili dog, I scanned the room and was made saucer-eyed by the appearance of a gentleman seated on the other side and end of the bar.

He was the perfect melding of my father and myself. Splitting our heights and combining our builds, he was dressed in Harley Davidson gear, just like Dad, and possessed rosy cheeks, expressions, and a smile eerily similar to mine - yet he moved like my father. It was unsettling.

He also appeared to land in the middle of us age-wise, or where Dad was when he passed, anyway. But I felt his countenance to be far more advanced than his driver's license might indicate. A direct result of having lived through more life than many of his peers. But perhaps due even more to a penchant for finding himself seated at the bar while the sun is high, and on most days of the week that end in “Y”. I was forced to swallow what was on its way to becoming an audible gasp when I saw both my father’s eyes and mine reflected in his. Some deep reflection of a personal nature immediately followed, which continued for the rest of my time there and beyond.

I went to Cooperstown to track down the spirit of my father, and I did. Though I’m not entirely sure who tracked down who. I’m still trying to make sense of it all, but I think I have at least one solid takeaway already. Be aware that if you go chasing ghosts, sometimes you catch them. And they might have good reason for allowing themselves to get caught.