On Nancy Cary

(photo lifted from her FB page. Sorry)

Sunday evening I got word that my old friend Nancy Cary had passed away from complications during a surgical procedure. I met Nancy in San Jose, I guess in 1983. She was dating my roommate and high school buddy Don Cary. You guessed it, they eventually married.

We all attended DeAnza College. Don studied film, Nancy a poet. We had a great time, then Don went and got accepted to the San Diego State film program, and they left town.

I sent Don a text today offering my condolences and all that. He wrote back about the San Jose Bees minor league baseball games we used to go to. [See Jan. 27, 2011 post concerning Kirby Puckett.] Don and I and Bodie from Tennessee and Tex from Mississippi. Beers you could barely lift for a buck and much heckling of players on both sides. Nancy fit right in. I had forgotten how much so.

I stayed more in touch with Nancy, through facebook, over the years. Her posts showed a deep joy and involvement in the area's writing scene and an organization called So Say We All in San Diego. And now, surely, there is a whole community as stunned and shocked as I am at her passing.

You are already missed, Nancy.

On Meeting Kirby Puckett

[Wikipedia: Kirby Puckett (March 14, 1960 – March 6, 2006) played his entire 12-year baseball career with the Minnesota Twins (1984-1995).]

The Visalia Oaks came to play the San Jose Bees back in 1983. The Bees played in the lowest (single A) minor league and were a co-op team owned by four Major League teams and one from Japan. The first base coach doubled as their interpreter. Small ballpark, small crowd; the players and umpires couldn't help but hear the hecklers.

After some tailgating, my friends Bodie (from Tennessee), Tex (from Mississippi), DinDin and I took our seats behind the third base dugout. (Both southerners had booming twangs. Very effective. Us Minneapolis natives, not so much.) It was our custom to pick one member of the opposing team and ride him relentlessly throughout the game. We saw the name Kirby Puckett in the program and he was the one. Though comparatively svelte in those days, Kirby still had the huge butt and, when he waddled up to home plate to lead off the game, we let him have it. We gave him our best stuff, even managing to rhyme his last name without being vulgar.

The first pitch came in eye-high. Kirby hacked at it anyway, hitting a line shot that was by the shortstop before he could even react. The ball stayed on the same plane till it crashed into the fence in left-center. The hardest hit ball I've ever seen. Kirby chugged into third with a stand-up triple, looked up at us and tipped the bill of his helmet—all the while flashing us that wonderful smile.

We quickly searched the program for someone else to taunt. Within a year Kirby was getting four hits in his first game with the Twins and the rest is World Championships and Hall of Fame. (Okay, so we really didn't meet him. But he did acknowledge us.)