The Camaraderie of a Lifetime

Jesse Solomon, starting pitcher for the Lansing Lakers (1946 Kiwanis League champions) would have turned 90 this month.

My father Jesse Solomon would have been 90 today. How serendipitous that this clipping arrived the other day (via a text from Jeff George). My father's in the back row, far left, standing between the asst coach and Otsie George. The 'Lansing Lakers' won the Kiwanis city championship, circa 1946? What's amazing is how many of these young men went on to become the lifeblood of the small town I grew up in, how so many were lifelong friends through marriage-hood, parenthood, raising families, horseshoe and golf tournaments, poker marathons, Saratoga summers, smelting and fishing, well into their retirements...Bobby, Dicke, Rudy, Otsie, Richie, Jesse, and others, these guys were best friends from cradle to grave (Rudy Christopher survives them.)

Here's one memory: my father and I were at Chris 'n Greens, a local diner about a mile from our house. We might have gone there for a hot donut, a cup of coffee, or maybe Jesse wanted to shoot the shit with somebody. We're standing in the gravel parking lot and a big ole gas guzzler Oldsmobile rolls towards us, real slow like, and as the car is crawling by, the back passenger door swings wide open, like a scene out of a mafia movie. My father, in mid-conversation with me, turns and starts walking alongside the car, then jumps into the moving car, the door slams shut, and the driver peels full-tilt out of the parking lot, leaving me in a cloud of dust.

Turns out one of the guys had a hot tip for the Daily Double at Finger Lakes and post-time for the first race was in 90 minutes, about the time it takes to get to Canandaigua. So if you're my father, when a car full of your "cousins" drives by with the door open, you hop in and ask questions later. It didn't matter where you were headed - because wherever you ended up will have been time well spent.

As I look at these ballplayers, I'm thinking these boys from hardscrabble Myers and Lansing just beat some team from Ithaca, not a big city but still a lot bigger than Lansing. But if you look harder, into their eyes, there was never any doubt. These guys were never intimidated, not for a second. They radiate grit and confidence. My father and Dicke Solomon are smiling broadly. Otsie is smirking. This game was over as soon they stepped onto the field.

That's how I choose to remember my dad. In a word: Camaraderie. His life was well filled with a circle of family, friends, cousins, lifelong teammates, and jockeys with hot tips. Everyone should be so lucky.