Fun exits, stage left

This might sound a little weird, but Sterling's retirement has hit me a lot like my father's death did.

Dad and sis in goofier days

Maybe because both of them brought some fun into my life. My dad, for all his faults--including a long battle with low-level (and worse) depression (hey, thanks for the genetics!)--was fun. He's the one who tuned into the polka program on the radio every Sunday and danced while making dinner, who followed my mom into the pantry and made her giggle, who spontaneously broke into a quick refrain of "Will You Love Me in December As You Do in May" or "Poinciana, Is That Your Nose or a Banana."

After I moved away to the big city, he was the one who insisted on getting a real Christmas tree for my holiday visit, even if it was only for a few days (I think he got it as much for himself, too.) And it was Dad who stood at the kitchen counter at Christmastime, making a ham sandwich and singing along with "The Carol of the Bells" on the stereo. "Christmas is here, let's have a beer..." 

I can mark the sudden disappearance of fun in our family to December 7, 1999, the day he died. I think for him, that had happened several years earlier, when his younger brother (and beer drinking partner) died suddenly. It's like a vacuum sucking a certain kind of goofy joy and delight out of the familial universe.

Sterling being Sterling

Yesterday I got a similar feeling. The Master, gone. Never to call another game. No more goofy comments, silly songs, and just plain good times packaged in a voice and cadence that was fun in and of itself. Much like my father's could be a lot of times.

Of course, Sterling is not my father (at least, my mother never owned up to it). The impact of losing Dad has been understandably greater that losing John's play-by-play and everything that went with it.

But the loss is still similar. A welcome dollop of fun and good times, gone and never to return.

For years, I've thought that getting older is basically a battle against losing fun. Legions of deaths, aches and pains, heartache, regrets and illness don't make it easy. Thank God my wife and I have staunchly remained idiots and wackadoodles all these years.

I guess now we'll just have to ratchet it up a notch.