I recently wrote a column titled ”Farewell, Home Sweet Home” about my emotions surrounding my parents putting my childhood home on the market. Well, it got real, real fast last weekend. The house is now under contract and my parents move into their new senior apartment is just around the corner.
Suddenly the realization became clear that our trip north to spend Easter with family would be the last time we would gather in MeeMaw and PapPap’s home, my childhood home, for the past 61 years. It was lump-in-the-throat time as the inevitable flashbacks were about to come fast and furiously. It’s definitely not the last time that we will visit family in Pittsburgh, but it is the last time we will celebrate a holiday together in a home that we have known since 1965.
When we left South Carolina for Pittsburgh on Thursday, I confidently told my wife that it was just a part of life and no biggie, and I wouldn’t get all emotional. Those of you who know me well can stop snickering, because of course I was going to get all emotional. I am, after all, just a hopeless romantic and sentimental fool inside the tough-guy hockey exterior.
So why do I keep torturing myself by writing about these very personal and emotional events? Because I’m getting older and want to make sure I don’t forget!
During the drive north, I inevitably started to get a bit nostalgic, especially when I started playing music from the ‘60s, ‘70s and even the early ‘80s when I was growing up at 339 Laurie Drive.
It instantly took me back to my childhood and when Petulla Clark’s “Downtown” came on. I was transported to a streetcar ride on Liberty Avenue; passing the smells of the fresh produce in the Strip District; riding the escalators in Gimbels and Kaufmann’s department stores; the matinee movies at the majestic Warner and Stanley theaters; a ride on Mount Washington’s Duquesne Incline; passing the smoky steel mills along the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers; and to a baseball game at Forbes Field. Heck when we moved into this house in May of 1965, the Penguins didn’t even exist (no NHL team until 1967!).
Some of my earliest memories of moving from Maxwell Alley in East Liberty to our newly constructed house in 1965 were watching Saturday morning cartoons with my brother Jan while eating Cap’n Crunch cereal. My mom reminded me that we had these metallic yellow Tonka dump trucks and I apparently liked digging up her garden bed. She also remembered the almost constant fighting between me and my brother Jan, my elder by a year.
We spent a lot of time with our young neighbors, Ron and Mark Granatire, who lived directly across the street and have remained friends over the years. We were always playing on their swing set and as we grew it would be playing basketball and swimming in their above ground pool and playing our signature pickup two-hand touch football games “between the telephone poles.” Eventually, it would turn to street hockey and roller hockey games under the street light. The games were only interrupted by the occasional car.
It’s funny what memories stick with you. In the 1960s it was TV shows like Gilligan’s Island, Green Acres, Romper Room, The Beverly Hillbillies, Batman, Lost in Space and Star Trek, to name a few. Movies like Mary Poppins, Born Free, The Sound of Music (which we dutifully watched on Easter Sunday evening), The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, the relatively new sensation that was James Bond, and all the war movies that my father introduced us to that he still watches on TCM to this day .
Songs that have a permanent place in my feeble brain: Let’s go Fly a Kite (Mary Poppins), Daydream Believer (Monkees), Puff the Magic Dragon (Peter, Paul, and Masry), Brown Eyed Girl (Van Morrison), Aquarius/Let The Sun Shine (Fifth Dimension), Nights in White Satin (The Moody Blues), One Tin Soldier (The Original Caste) and, of course, almost anything by The Beatles.
In the ’70s TV it was All in the Family, The Brady Bunch, Welcome Back Kotter, MASH, Columbo, Happy Days, Scooby-Doo and a bunch of game shows and variety shows. Movies included Poseidon Adventure, The Godfather, Jaws, Rocky, Slapshot, Animal House and this crazy new space genre Star Wars.
My musical tastes became much broader and a bit angrier in my teens. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (Elton John), Jesus Christ Superstar soundtrack, Song Sung Blue (Neil Diamond), Take It To The Limit (Eagles), Country Road (John Denver), Someone Saved My Life Tonight (Elton John), Frampton Comes Alive (Peter Frampton), Free Bird (Lynyrd Skynyrd), Saturday Night Fever Soundtrack (yes we did do Disco!), We are the Champions (Queen), Boston’s entire first album, all of The Grand Illusion album (Styx), and anything by The Who.
Yes, we played baseball and football, but golf and especially hockey became our obsessions. We went pool hopping, did ding-dong-dash, soaped people’s windows on Devil’s Nights, had massive snowball fights and even participated in one of the strangest activities of the 1970s, The Streak. We may have had a party or two or three in the basement over the years, too, some that my parents may or may not have known about.
This past weekend even allowed us to turn back the clock as the Pirates swept their home-opener series with the Baltimore Orioles — coincidentally, the team they twice defeated in seven games to win World Series in 1971 and 1979!
We watched a recently rediscovered and digitized old family film (shoutout to my friends at Illumin8 Films for digitizing it for me!) huddled around the TV in the living room. We even have the 50-minute digital heirloom titled “Somebody Has To Care: Faith, Family and Frozen Dreams” (Click on the title to watch).
We grew up playing all sorts of games over the years in the Battista basement from hide-and-seek, to billiards, to bumper pool, to cards, to Monopoly, to massively competitive ping-pong games. I may have lost my cool once and thrown a paddle at my brother that ended up embedded in the wall!
On Easter Sunday, I was walking Barkley down the street I had walked down so many times before, but this one felt different. I got choked up as the memories flooded my head. It was the place of so many special occasions. It was often the place of some of life’s hardest moments and greatest victories. In sports yes, but mostly in life. It was a cathartic walk that reminded me that I am, after all, human. I made many mistakes, but I grew. I failed. I learned. I cried. I laughed. I regretted. I rejoiced. Ultimately, I give thanks to God for the amazing life he’s blessed me with.
My dad’s favorite memories? “Watching you boys grow up. Especially playing sports.” My mom, ever the pragmatist, said, “Being on my own, being able to make my own decisions on running the house.” My wife, Heidi, loved the trees, the flowers, the wildlife and the fact that my mom could cook so many different types of meals for such large groups of people.
For me there was one very special occasion that I shared with my parents and my future wife, when we got engaged (at a Penguin’s game, of course!). We spent that weekend with my parents, did the Station Square brunch the next day and then took the historic Gateway Clipper over to see the Steelers game. Faith, Family and Sports, indeed!
Our kids spent every Christmas and Easter at my parents’ house for most of their lives. Our daughter, Brianna, fondly remembers playing games (Boggle, Scrabble, cards, and What Do You Meme?) on the dining room table. Oldest son Jonathon loved playing cards with all the cousins and eating MeeMaw’s cooking. Our youngest, Ryan, fondly remembered playing knee hockey in the basement with his older cousins Anthony and Nicholas. Brianna and Ryan both lived at my parents during summer internships, as did my nephew Anthony. I too lived at home during my own internship with the Pittsburgh Penguins and then for the three years I worked for the Pens. Hey, free rent and MeeMaw’s cooking? No-brainer.
My best memory? Too many, but definitely all the get-together’s with family and friends. But if I have to pick one it has to be eating my mom’s pastina soup and having my many talks with her at the kitchen table. My mom, Angela Battista, is an angel on earth!
I’m grateful for my dad’s coaching us in baseball and later competitive softball. He passed along his love of sports and movies. We’ve all watched The Guns of Navarone, Midway, In Harm’s Way, The Godfather, The Pride of the Yankees, The Sands of Iowa Jima, Eldorado, True Grit (pretty much anything with John Wayne) a thousand times. And there we were the classic religious movies that we grew up watching every Christmas and Easter.
So, on the final weekend what did we do? We ate well, of course, we played games on the dining room table, and we watched sports and movies. We watched the Pirates beat the Orioles (three times), Jessie Pegula win the Charleston Open and the Pens beat the defending Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers (twice!). We watched The Ten Commandments, The Greatest Story Ever Told, The King of Kings, El Dorado, Big Jake, Ben Hur (the 1959 edition) and The Sound of Music. Epic.
My final meal Sunday night? My mom’s pastina soup. Three servings! The doorbell rang and there stood my old childhood neighbors from across the street, the Granatire brothers, Ron (JB) and Mark (Bud). My brother Jan and Bud used to take on me (Otto) and JB in all sorts of sporting competitions and of course have different recollections of who dominated who. Oh, the great memories.
Sunday was a little sad as it was my last night sleeping in “my room.” When I awoke Monday morning to prepare for the trip south, I told myself I was going to suck it up and be stoic, and not get all caught up in the moment. Yeah, that didn’t work. As I walked Barkley up and down Laurie Drive one last time, a rush of emotions came over me.
We said goodbye to MeeMaw and PapPap Battista, and I might have given my mom a little extra squeeze as we hugged, knowing this was a different goodbye. As we started to drive away, I turned on my Apple Music and Little River Band’s “Cool Change” came on immediately, followed by Elton John’s “Circle of Life.” God certainly has a good sense of humor and timing.
