Happy Melanie Day! (part 2)

Today, August 19th, is Melanie’s birthday.  This is Part I of the post on her birthday.  PART II is below.

I probably should write paeans to every EFL-member’s spouse on their birthdays.  But I don’t know any other EFL spouse’s birthday.  I probably should know other spouse’s birthdays, because various of you have mentioned it was your wife’s birthday.  But I wasn’t taking notes.  I don’t need to take notes to remember Melanie’s birthday.

Birthdays are a big deal to Melanie.     This year my birthday came at a time when Melanie’s mom was in a medical crisis.  Melanie kept apologizing for not making my birthday more special — although she still did make it special.  I told her not to worry, I understood, and was not at all put out.  This was all true, but she’d come back an hour later and apologize again.

When she was 16, she invited friends over for her birthday party. No one came. She was devastated.  When she turned 46 some of her friends threw a “16th birthday” party for her.  It helped a lot, but it didn’t fix the hurt entirely.

Melanie shares her birthday with Bill Clinton.  That doesn’t bother her.  She also shares her birthday with Jim Foster.  That has proven more problematic, because her birthday has several times coincided with the All-Community Meeting kicking off our academic year.  People presiding over the AC Meeting have usually remembered to publicly celebrate Jim Foster’s birthday.  They have seldom remembered to celebrate Melanie’s — unless someone from the audience speaks up.  That helps, but it doesn’t fix the hurt entirely.

Today is another All-Community Meeting.  It is not her favorite way to spend her birthday. I am publishing this introduction to an update early because I hope someone will quietly alert the leaders of the meeting that this is Melanie’s birthday, and a word in her honor and a little song will go a long way toward making today a good memory.

(I will finish this update as soon as I can after BP does the stats.)

.  PART II

Jamie did mention to a meeting leader that it was Melanie’s birthday, but they told hm there were at least 5 birthdays in the group today, so they didn’t plan to mention it. But Robin Baker did anyway — and someone shouted out that it was another person’s birthday, too (I couldn’t make out who).   So it’s hard to catch everyone.  Thanks for the effort, Jamie!

I had the inspiration this morning to run to Fred Meyer and get a birthday cake for her — plus birthday plates, napkins, candles, and a box of matches.  I delivered thsoe to her table while she was away during a break, and her table mates lit the candles and sang happy birthday to her when she got back.  I was back at my own seat by then, next to Mark Weinert.  So she got some recognition.

…

Melanie is not a baseball fan.  She tolerates it ok, and will go to games to keep me company and be with her family.  But if she thought she could get away with it, she might prefer to bring a book to read.

This wasn’t always true. When she was about middle-school age, living in central Kansas, she became a Kansas City Royals fan.   This was during their glory years, late 1970’s, early 1980’s.  I presume their success helped make the Royals attractive. I’m sure Melanie understood George Brett was the star upon whom the Royals’ championship was built. But Brett was not her favorite player.  Her devotion ran to other players, specifically Darrell Porter and Clint Hurdle.

I am quite certain Melanie did not elevate Porter and Hurdle to the top of her baseball pantheon based on their batting averages, nor even their home run totals.  I suspect what she appreciated about them transcended their on-field performance.

Darrell Porter left the Royals after the 1980 season.  Clint Hurdle departed after 1981. I believe that was pretty much the end of Melanie’s baseball fandom.  If it wasn’t, then her family moving to the baseball desert — Oregon, that is — a couple of years later would have killed it off for sure.

Until she met me.  The longest game I have ever attended in person was a 17-inning marathon in St. Louis,  Mark McGwire’s Cardinals versus Barry Bonds’ Giants. That was a great game. Bonds was intentionally walked with a man already on first and one out in the third inning. He hit a two-run homer with two outs in the top of the ninth on a 2-2 count to tie the game.  McGwire hit a two-run homer with two outs in the bottom of the 12th on a 2-2 count to tie the game.  Melanie, her parents, her sister and her brother-in-law all stayed on anyway, clear to the end of the game in the 17th, Cardinals losing 9 – 6.

Melanie promised in her wedding vows to play fantasy baseball, a promise she kept the next year in the old league with the Stillwater Whippets.  She swept Dave Votaw’s Cupertino ChipWits four straight in the last series of the season to make the playoffs, but lost in the first round.

But that was it for Melanie and fantasy baseball.  Except for tolerating my inexplicably inexhaustible interest in the passtime.

So it is in her honor that I present Monday morning’s EFL standings: