©2010, Randall A. Beeler
nd therefore we also having so great a cloud of witnesses over our head, laying aside every weight and sin which surrounds us, let us run by patience to the fight proposed to us (Heb 12, DRE)Well, the Bucs are goin' all the way!
All the way!
All the way!
That song was a hit in Pittsburgh in 1960, and, unlike the present day, so were the Pirates. Long before the Steelers became the premier champions in NFL history, the Pirates pulled Excalibur out of the dead body of the Yankee dynasty one wild October afternoon.
My Uncle Larry (Lawrence Slaugh, jazz stand-up bassist, husband, father, teacher of music in the public schools of McKeesport, PA) was there when Bill Mazeroski felled the nefarious Yankees. You see, Uncle Larry was the bassist for the Benny Benack Band (aka the Iron City Six), the semi-official fight-song band of the upstart Pittsburgh Pirates.
My Uncle Larry (Lawrence Slaugh, jazz stand-up bassist, husband, father, teacher of music in the public schools of McKeesport, PA) was there when Bill Mazeroski felled the nefarious Yankees. You see, Uncle Larry was the bassist for the Benny Benack Band (aka the Iron City Six), the semi-official fight-song band of the upstart Pittsburgh Pirates.
Regularly at games that season, they played the Pirates' fight song, which was a wild-seller, along with the Green Weenie of Bob Prince fame. And Uncle Larry played bass the day that Bill Mazeroski hit the Shot Heard 'Round the Bronx. In fact, he had taken a sick day from his teaching job … and his principal saw him on the television news that night … and winked an eye.
Uncle Larry wasn't, of course, sick. He did have Bucco Fever. But then again, it seemed like the entire population of the Pittsburgh metropolitan area crowded into Forbes Field as witnesses to that Seventh Game of the World Series.
My Dad was there in the outfield bleachers. Roberto Clemente was there. So many others … who are gone.
Or are they?
My Dad died of cancer nearly a decade ago, my Uncle Larry of a heart ailment also nearly a decade ago. My grandmother watched on TV. My grandfather. My Uncle Frankie. Roberto in the waters of the Caribbean. So many gone.
If that moment lives in my heart—three years before I was born—as if I had been there, then imagine what Uncle Larry experiences right now, in the Great Cloud of Witnesses.
He, my Dad, my Grandparents, Roberto, the Saints, Mother Mary, Jesus Himself have gone all the way.
And they encourage us, too.
So, even if you are an "I-bleed-pinstripes" Yankees fan, or a right-now hapless Pittsburgh Pirates fan, be encouraged—because you are encouraged … by Uncle Larry, my Dad, your Dad, your Mom, Roberto, and all the Saints.
We're goin' all the way.
Posts
"If that moment lives in my heart—three years before I was born—as if I had been there, then imagine what Uncle Larry experiences right now, in the Great Cloud of Witnesses."Very well said!
ReplyDelete"If that moment lives in my heart—three years before I was born—as if I had been there, then imagine what Uncle Larry experiences right now, in the Great Cloud of Witnesses."I have come to understand that through my own experience.
ReplyDelete