Manny became a Team Leader this Season: A Letter from Coach Joe

Manny,
I have to admit, at our first practice I thought I had a trouble maker on my team. I thought I had a kid who was talented but didn't want to listen to the coach. Then something happened: I talked to you and you listened and you acted like a real ballplayer.

Manny, there's a lot of ways to measure success. I watched you become a team leader this season. We both knew you could hit and field and pitch. I heard you talk to some of your teammates with encouraging words. I watched you coach third base and take charge. I watched you do so many little things that it takes to become a real ball player and not just someone who plays ball. You were a complete success this year. You played exceptionally well and you were an exceptional teammate!

I am very proud to have coached you this year. I know our last game did not go the way you wanted it to. I think you put a little too much pressure on yourself. You're very good, but not perfect. Certainly, you still have a little ways to go in being a team leader. Wearing a catcher's mitt in practice probably wasn't a good example to set. But I know teenagers who wouldn't have been able to do what you did this year in terms of helping your teammates and taking charge on the field.

Thanks for a great season!

I'll see you at the picnic when I get to give you your trophy!

Coach Joe

I Wished I Lived on a Nude Beach

I wish I lived on a nude beach.

A long time ago my favorite nude beaches were in Southampton, Martha’s Vineyard, and Corfu. Southampton, unfortunately, has turned into a crass playground of the arrivistes.

My favorite beach in the world and all my life is Gayhead Beach at the far western end of the island of Martha's Vineyard. It is known for its regal cliffs made of many layers of different colored clay.

Bathing in the clay was otherworldly.

Soon it was outlawed.

It was a memorable peak experience which can never be repeated, because since then, Martha's Vineyard, though it was always home to Jackie O and other famous people, became the St. Barts or Monaco of the U.S. celebrity set.

Way back then it was much more peaceful. In the 1950s great but down to earth artists used to have all night dance parties on their decks in Chilmark. It was cool and really peaceful. In the 1980s I could still ride my bike from Oak Bluffs to Gayhead, 20 miles uphill, and not see a car the whole way..

Still, Edgartown was for the preppies, Yale Men, and CEOs who cut loose by shedding their business suits for pink or lime great sport jackets and plaid pants. Hooah!

Gayhead was settled by Aquinnah Indians of the Wampanaug nation who still live there, and Gayhead was their town. Real "wampum," for money, and in the form of purple shells, could still be found, and you could still eat Sunday morning brunch at the "Aquinnah Shop" without having to wait on line.

One of my best friends had an eighteenth century farmhouse down in the woods in Gayhead and I was there every summer. The clapboard house with hardwood floors was surrounded by the majestic piled stone walls photographed by Aaron Siskind in the 1950s. I took my bicycle on the ferry and rode up island or else camp in the woods.

There were two movie theaters and two fine restaurants. In funky Oak Bluffs, there was an historical African American community, as well as, a jewel of a Methodist "campground" and tabernacle, around which dozens of tiny gingerbread houses painted all pastel colors sat.

Was it all a dream? Because now I’m not rich enough to stay there.

A Brief Alternative Biographical Narrative

 

David H. Brown draws his daily inspiration from the Atlantic Ocean. He consists of approximately 60% water, 17% protein, 17% fat, and 6% other elements. He believes that if you have not read Dirty Havana Trilogy by Pedro Juan Gutiérrez, Love Thy Neighbor: A Story of War by Peter Maass, and Drama of the Gifted Child by Alice Miller, you can't be sure where you stand on most things. He earned his Ph.D. in American Studies at Yale University in 1989. In 1997, the delightful corporation called Emory University decided it didn't want him any more. He landed on his feet and eventually found retail again, a great but hitherto unfathomed inheritance of his Jewish ancestors from the Old Country.
 

In 2000 David became an asentado of orisha Obatalá-Ayáguna Leyibó in Havana, Cuba and began developing his ashé as a botaniquero and orisha artist. He is the author of two works of art history and cultural anthropology: Santería Enthroned: Art, Ritual, and Innovation in an Afro-Cuban Religion and “The Light Inside”: Abakuá Society Arts and Cuban Cultural History (2003). He is the owner of www.folkcuba.com. A forteen-year old named Enmanuel Padrón is the light of his life; plus he’s a ferocious high school basketball player.