APBA Thanksgiving, Take 44

I’ve spent a lot of Thanksgiving days in different places over the years, but there’s always been a tradition that made the holiday seem, as unsettling as it was, somewhat normal by the day’s end.

After my first wife passed away in 2006, I had no family at all. It led to my various places on the holidays; with no family, there was no real home base to anchor me on special days. Since her passing, I spent a couple of Thanksgivings at the Memphis airport shuttling friends back and forth to their destinations.

Once, I ate a festive meal at the West Memphis, Ark., Burger King. I don’t think the pilgrims’ mythical first feast consisted of pulling cheese off a paper wrapper that once enshrouded a flame-broiled slab of door mat, but it was the thought that counted, I guess.

One year I cooked a turkey for my cat and I, and for another holiday I made a traditional fare of melted Kraft cheese dip with the tomatoes and peppers spiked with hamburger. After digesting that it was a Stanksgiving, if you get my drift.

And because I worked at a daily newspaper until 2017, I often worked on the holiday so other reporters could be home with their families. I’d cover some community dinner at a tornado-stricken town and then head back to the news bureau to write the story and eat a frozen burrito or chicken salad sandwich from whatever convenience store was open.

Six years ago, Holly, my wife now, moved down here and we had our first Thanksgiving dinner together. Last year, she traveled to see her aunt in Chicago on the holiday and I ended up at a VFW legion post with a co-worker for lunch.

This year, she’s home and we’re cooking a small turkey for dinner tonight.

Despite all the variations I’ve gone through for the holidays, there is always a constant. It’s the APBA game we play. It’s been that way now for 44 Thanksgiving holidays.

I began playing the sports replay game in 1977 when my parents got me the football game for Christmas. The following year, when my high school was out for the holiday, I spent Thanksgiving evening rolling games. The game added to the joy of being out of school. Back then, I had a gooseneck lamp attached to my bed and it would illuminate the game I rolled atop the bed. It was simple, but it was perfect. What better way to spend a holiday evening than to play with our favorite game.

After high school, I’d return home from college and roll games during the holiday break. Later, when I first began my career in newspapers, I’d make it home to see my parents again during the Thanksgiving holiday and get in a few games.

Last year, after eating at the VFW post, I drove home and dove into my 1965 baseball replay. This year, I’ve got Texas heading to Kansas City and the St. Louis hosting Pittsburgh in the 1972 baseball replay I’m working on now.

I think a lot of the APBA players do the same thing during the holiday. Maybe after a hectic day full of relatives, rolling a game or two is a way to relax. Maybe playing the games is way to forget about the loneliness of not having a family. You always read about how holiday depression fills hospital emergency rooms. Perhaps the game alleviates that depression for some.

Maybe it’s a way to return to the magic of the holidays we all felt as kids; the APBA game serves as the link to those days. We all change as we get older, but the game remains the same and we can even replay seasons when we were kids and the magic meant more then. I’m doing 1972 now. I turned 12 that year when the seasonal magic had yet to be tarnished by life.

Whether you’re in a huge house with lots of family celebrating the season or watching friends fly off to their own families from the Memphis airport, whether you’re eating a Whopper or a chicken salad sandwich that had an expiration date from the previous presidential administration, be thankful for our APBA game. To me, the game is more a holiday fare than the food and family camaraderie.

And, as we in the game community say each year, “APBA Thanksgiving, everyone.”

Bad Cell Service? Call Julie

I’ve had pretty bad cell phone service at my home for the past year or so and, because we have no cable or internet hookup either, it impairs our ability to get online as well.

That’s one of the reasons why I’ve not written many blogs for a while. It’s frustrating trying to acquire a “hotspot” on my phone for internet service only to discover it’s only a “tepidspot” or “lukewarmspot.” So, instead, when I’m rambunctious, I load up the laptop and head to a nearby hotel, park in the lot and try to pirate their free wi-fi.

I’ve also gone to a hospital across the highway from the hotel, the downtown library and at the county courthouse where I work to get online at times. But in the summer, it’s pretty hot to sit in a car while filing the blogs and in the winter, it’s chilly. There’s also that lurker image of a guy sitting in a parking lot. The laptop is in my lap at those times, hence the name “laptop” and it’s below the window line. People who pass by only see me fiddling with something in my lap. I won’t go further with that picture.

We used to have decent wi-fi with our phones. Not to name companies, but we changed services to something akin to “Bust Mobile.” It used to be Virgin Mobile, but I guess that company felt they screwed so many over with the billings, they no longer qualified for that name and merged with the other company.

We live near an airport and my stepson, who is far smarter than I, thinks that maybe the airport blocks the phones' 5G signal so it won’t interfere with airplane operations. I’m not sure. All I know is that when a plane flies overhead, the television signal washes out and we miss the final question on “Jeopardy!”

In addition to not being able to file things online, not having phone service is creating a large problem with tracking the arrival times of the Amtrak train my wife takes to visit her aunt. There is an automated service you can call and “Julie,” a recorded voice that supposedly can understand words, tells me when trains will arrive at the station where I pick Holly up. It’s important to know those times.

Amtrak is generally late and it earns my title of “Damntrak” because of that habit. I tend to get to the station at least 45 minutes early just in case of any issues that could delay me such as wrecks, a flat tire, trains blocking crossings and other mayhem.

The train shows up around 12:30 a.m. to 1 a.m. at the Walnut Ridge, Ark., station. Based on the denizens I’ve met there while waiting for the train to arrive in the past, I sure don’t want Holly to have to wait for me to get there.

Once, I was waiting in the depot reading a book about the 1972-74 Oakland As. A guy came in and asked me what I was reading. I told him and he said I was too young to remember that. Despite me saying I was old enough to recall the team, he stared blankly ahead and said God just told him I had many years left and I wasn’t as old as I thought.

There’s always someone there with a financial crisis in need of money or cigarettes. Since I have neither, lately I just sit in the car and wait for the train.

And this is where Julie is so important.

This is a recent conversation I had with the poor phone connection:

JULIE: … if you want to know a train status, say “Train Status.”

ME: Train Status.

JULIE: I think you said “you want to buy a ticket.”

ME: (Louder) Train Status!

JULIE: Okay. Do you know the number of your train?

ME: Twenty-two.

JULIE: I think you said “forty-four.”

ME: How did you get a “four” sound from “two?”

JULIE: I’m sorry, I don’t understand. I’ll transfer you to a representative.”

And then there’s the usual, “We are experiencing high call volume at this time, please hold for the next representative.”

Meanwhile, the train continues lumbering down the track toward its destination.

There are times when it gets personal.

JULIE: What station is the train arriving?

ME: Walnut Ridge, Arkansas. (By now yelling and over-pronouncing each word.)

JULIE: I think you said “Modesto, California.”

ME: Your mother thinks you’re ugly and your pets don’t like you.

JULIE: You’re fat and you don’t have any money.

I’ve not been late yet to pick up my wife. Once, on a night when Daylight Savings occurred, Amtrak failed to adjust for the time and kept saying the train would arrive at 1:33 a.m. Then, at about midnight, Julie made the time change and said the train would roll into Walnut Ridge at 12:30 a.m. I made it there with about 5 minutes to spare that time.

So, we continue struggling with the phone service. I don’t write as many blogs as I had and I worry about being late at the station. Holly is making another trip to see her aunt soon and I’ll be yelling at Julie again.

I guess I could go to the hotel on the night of my wife's return, sit in the parking lot for a while and file blogs and call Julie.