Tue, April 22, 2003

This week, Athletic Reporter co-creator Joe Mulder called upon me to alter a photograph, removing the Atlanta Braves logo from a lovely young woman's cap. Joe did this with great apology, knowing that I'm a huge Braves fan. And knowing that I barely follow sports and probably have watched 4% of the Braves' games in the past five years. Still he apologized, because he understands me and he's a class act.

True, I barely ever watch the Braves any more – and even when I did I barely paid attention. I like baseball and I really enjoy watching it, but given the choice I usually end up watching TV shows instead. And, the Braves I love barely even exist any more. (As Seinfeld says, "You're rooting for clothing.") The Braves I truly love consist of Smoltz and Glavine and Sid Bream and Terry Pendleton and Brian Hunter and Dave Justice. I don't even know how long ago that team existed. This was back when Halle Berry was on the team. I remember the day Fred McGriff earned the nickname "Fire Dog," and why. That era. That's where my love of the Braves lives.

But my love has little to do with baseball. It has more to do with Skip and Don and Pete and Joe. Just as Emmylou Harris and Lyle Lovett were, these were the voices of my childhood. Familiar tones that inhabited the background, another part of the family as I grew up. They raised me, just like Mom and Dad. In many ways, that "sense memory" that is activated every time I hear Don Sutton or Pete Van Wieren speak, defines my love of the Braves. It reminds me of home. So, even if the Braves have done their share of falling apart in the last few years, I'm still a die-hard fan. So what if I can only name three players on the team?

I'm the kind of person that forms a strong sentimental bond with things that have been important, even if the bond is with some inconsequential detail that was just nearby at the time. Like the way Stargate, a film I've never seen a frame of, has sentimental value because it was playing in the background the first time I made out with a girl. (Britney Spears's "I'm Not A Girl, Not Yet A Woman," has a similar meaning. I'm surely the oldest person for whom that is true.) A restaurant in Redondo Beach reminds me of a kiss I received there. A building on the USC campus reminds me of a movie scene we shot there. Innumerable trinkets around my apartment remind me of Mom, who selected them for me. Nine To Five (yes, the Dolly Parton movie) reminds me of her mom, who babysat us the night I first watched it. The World Trade towers remind me of family trips to New York with some of my favorite people in the world and walking through the underground concourse with one of my best friends, looking for a pay phone. I love the rain because whenever it rains, my father says "I love the rain; it washes the memories off the sidewalk of life." Eraserhead reminds me of screening it with Mom and Uncle Bob when I was six. The breakup of Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan hit me especially hard because "Dennis & Meg" was part of a game my sister and I used to play. And the song "You Are My Sunshine." Forget about it.

Silly they may be, but these sentimental attachments make me who I am. What's more, they provide me with constant reminders of what I hold dear. I'm never far away from my Mom, because I can always look at the alphabetically-organized train of wooden animals on my bedside table and think of her. Wherever I go, there are shadows of my most treasured memories, so I never feel alone.

And (because I'm a sucker for callbacks) you can bet Joe will think twice before he asks me to Photoshop out another Braves logo.

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