Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
'50's Nostalgia, Vietnam Confusion, January 29, 2005
A nostalgic pause in middle aged baby boomer's lives, "Just a Little Rain" is a collection of reflections of men, and a remarkable woman, who played on the sandlots of the 1950's and early 1960's, travelled the world in the face of the Cold War, many of them as military brats, and got down to the grim task of the Vietnam War before they realized that their childhoods had ended. Chronicled by a first person narration that speaks for a generation, these old friends consider the quick ride that they were on and its' impact on who they are now, both pragmatically and spiritually, and how different their children's lives are from their own. Regardless of your age or station in life, you will find a little bit of yourself in these pages, as these participants, older now, revisit their childhood dreams, and a few nightmares, with the magic of that big hit that they all got at least once in their lives, still sweet in their minds.
Grandparents, home towns, childhood and military friends, gone or gone their own way, but, never forgotten, like the crack of a bat and the smack of a mitt which were the piper's call to a game for generations of boys who were caught up in the siren's song of baseball. We have been trying to recapture the definitive moments in our past ever since it became the past and we began looking back wistfully, wondering where it went. Was it Fitzgerald who told us that we do not look back, searching for events, we merely search for our youth? If you didn't cry, or at least get choked up when a son and his dead father played catch in "Field of Dreams", then you have lost the magic. But, I bet you had it once, just like all the rest of us did. We may have filed the unpleasant things in our lives off in some corner of our mind, but not baseball. We are still waiting for that perfect pitch. And just when the curtain is falling, we'll be wanting one more at bat, one more race down the base path, one more real game.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Don't be fooled!, May 1, 2005
This is about a whole lot more than baseball or growing up a military brat. This is about a generation that inherited a sense of duty and obligation from an earlier time that led them on a path of disillusionment, and in many cases, destruction. This beauty, a work of wonderous art, asks the unanswered questions of millions, and in its' own round about way, answers them. I love this book. I really love this book
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5.0 out of 5 stars
A Lull Between the Storms, March 19, 2005
We were the original baby boomers. We loved the air raid drills that broke up a school day's monotony, and we chased the milkman on our bikes, hoping for a chunk of ice on hot summer days. A nickel in our pocket as we awaited the tinkling bell of the Popsicle man was all that we needed to make our day, unless we were fortunate enough to have a dime for a Nutty Buddy. Born in the mid 1940's we entered the post war world with the exploits of our fathers as shining beacons of duty and courage to light our way. Many of us were in military families who traveled the world and caught what glimpses we could of normal hometown childhood. For some this was a good experience, for others it was not. Although our memories of childhood may vary with geography and family culture, boys of my generation seem to have some things in common that were universal, regardless of social status, or where one grew up. Those things were sports in general, baseball in particular, and we all played army. Boys and girls who were born after the Korean War, as a general rule, do not have those sepia toned snapshots burned into that special part of their brains that retains the black and white memories of an era that made us different. They entered a Technicolor world that had outgrown radio in favor of TV, a brand new world that was beginning to share America's baseball monopoly with other sports, right there in full color for the asking without the need or necessity to play outdoors all day long in the fresh air and sun. They also found themselves on T Ball teams in full uniform at age five, and played and even practiced in front of cheering white collar parents who had lifestyles more relaxed than our own hard working parents had, and that afforded them this new found leisure time to spend with their children. Nope, an era died when kids my age grew up, and few since have known the sweet satisfaction of sitting on a dark porch on a soft summer evening with their dad, often their whole family, and listening to the lost art of live action radio sports broadcasting. Without the visual aids of television, commentators, many of whom were as popular as the players, painted a picture for us with their colorful descriptive banter as clear and beautiful as if we were there in person. In fact, I knew exactly what to expect when I attended my first major league game. The scene before me at ten years old was a duplicate of what I had been watching on the radio for many years. In this case it was an exhibition game in El Paso, Texas between the Giants and the Indians in March of 1958. Little did I know that I was witnessing the beginning of the great betrayal, as this was the first game ever where a major league team had made a move and was representing a new town, a new city, and new fans. The lure of big money had given California two storied east coast teams at a cost to the game that would not be felt for several more years, but would forever change the flavor of our favorite past time. Many of you will remember when I tell you that Willie Mays was young and in his prime and Herb Score was trying to stage a come back after being almost killed by a Gil McDougal line drive into his face the year before. What else could you expect from a damn Yankee, whom we loved to hate, despite having a line-up in the late `50's that every single boy in the USA could name whether he liked them or not. Skowron, Kubek, Mantle, Maris.... Gods, all of them. I was absolutely speechless at the speed of Score's fastball. Flabbergasted. Scared that I would ever in my life have to face something like that, I began to doubt my future in the game, but reveled in the atmosphere and just being a part of the crowd where people yelled "Hey, Willie, can you come over here and sign my boy's ball?" And he did, with a smile that challenged the blinding desert sun in that local ball park. I had a hot dog that day, of course, and carried my glove with me the entire time. I was to realize later that also in that ball park were Bob Feller, Early Winn and Bob Lemon. Curiously, as I watched that game in person, live, for my first time, I was listening to a voice on the radio describe every move on the diamond. I can hear myself to this day. There are ten million memories, no, a hundred million, in the heads of men who grew up with me and before I was born. Even if you were not good enough to play when you got older, the field was pretty level before you were eleven or twelve, and you were out there with the boys, in the sun, every day, playing baseball. These accounts are the memories of men, and one remarkable woman, who were kids in the `50's, and would come of age in the tumultuous `60's, witnessing assassinations of our country's leaders, a nation ripped apart by racial strife, and a decade of war in which so many would participate, willingly, shadowing the feats of our fathers, not to mention John Wayne. And although the magic of our youth came to a sudden halt all too soon, baseball, and a sense of duty, since obscured by the noise of a new landscape, ran in our blood when we were young.
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