Life isn't fair. We all know that yet we somehow never seem to really embrace how true it is. Take being forced to watch siblings participate in activities, for instance. It simply wasn't fair that I was forced to endure endless hours of dance recitals while two of my three sisters rarely, if ever, actually came to watch me play hockey!
Debbie was the only one who actually wanted to go to my hockey games. I still believe that her real motivation was at least partly the hope that Mike Rancilio from our Bantam team would be one of the linesmen assigned to the game; but she went and she cheered us on, whether Mike was there or not. Kim complained on the rare occasion that she actually had to go to a game and then, I was told, spent the entire time making everyone else around her so miserable that Mom and Dad finally decided it was easier on everyone to just leave her home. Then there was Beth. Beth was "The Baby." Although only two years younger than me, Mom somehow thought her too small and frail to endure the "frigid" weather of outdoor hockey in St. Louis.
So I pushed on toward my future career as a star defenseman for the St. Louis Blues without Kim or Beth's support. It really didn't matter, though, because I was going to be the final piece that would score the Stanley Cup winning goal for the St. Louis Blues; in overtime of the seventh game, no less. I played that scenario out a million times in my head. Each time, I got to hoist the Cup in front of thousands of adoring fans.
It simply wasn't fair, then, that Dad and I were forced to sit through the girls' dance recitals each year. To be honest, Debbie was only in a few before she managed to convince everyone, especially the dance teacher, that her "gifts" were in other areas. Mom was always a backstage helper, so Debbie joined Dad and me in as a prisoner in the audience.
Dad had an interesting approach to dance recitals. We were handed a program upon our arrival in the Epiphany Gymnatorium. We would find our seats and Dad would promptly pull out his ever-present pen and number the dances in reverse order from the intermission to the beginning and then again from the end to the intermission. Before each dance, he would announce the number so I knew how many more dances I had to endure before the intermission or end. Most of the fathers around us appreciated the countdown; although it was sometimes discouraging to be reminded that we still had eight more dances before the break!
The moms in the audience were not nearly as appreciative of Dad's numbering scheme as the fathers and the other prisoner progeny seemed to be. One of the moms apparently squealed to Mom and she must have given Dad an earful. That didn't stop his numbering plan; merely his announcements to those around us. He still showed me the numbers as we counted toward the merciful end and his program mysteriously disappeared after the recital.
Intermission was the real treat. We, along with all of the other prisoners, went to the concession stand in the back where Dad always bought me a chocolate soda and a Gus's soft pretzel. Bribery for keeping quiet, I suppose.
Somehow I was expected to pretend that I actually believed Kim was going to grow up to be some world famous ballerina. Really??? Even as a pre-teen dance critic I could have told you that wasn't going to happen. Ballerinas were supposed to be beautiful and graceful. Kim was my sister. There was certainly a law somewhere that said sisters could never be seen as beautiful or graceful under any circumstances.
One year Beth was selected to play Clara in a production of "The Nutcracker." Mom and Dad were so proud of her. I was maybe a whopping seven years old at the time and to my "trained eye" it looked like Beth walked out on stage in her pajamas and then went and sat up in a big throne holding a doll while watching the dancers do their thing for what seemed like an eternity. I went and I watched and, of course I clapped at the appropriate times but my mind was most certainly focused on the move I would put on some Montreal Canadien forward as I pulled a toe drag move to sneak the puck into the clear to take the shot that would win the Stanley Cup in front of thousands of adoring Blues fans.
Neither Beth nor Kim went on to become famous ballerinas and I never did get to lace up my skates as a member of the St. Louis Blues. Not that those things were likely to happen anyway, but all of those dreams and aspirations were torn from us one June morning in 1974 when Dad died of a massive heart attack while sitting in the living room of our new home.
In that instant; everything changed. No more dance lessons and no more hockey. No more Blues games at The Old Barn or Cardinals games at Busch Stadium. None of those seemed very important anymore. It's amazing how even a twelve year old can suddenly come to grips with the hard truths of life and the finality of death.
Somewhere along the way all three of my sisters realized that their most important calling was not on the stage or, wherever they aspired to be, but to become a wife and mother. While they are never going to be famous from the world's perspective, they became quite important to the ones who counted on them each and every day.
And I ultimately went on to become a geeky husband and father. Sometimes as I watch the Blues on television, though, I catch myself thinking; just maybe if Dad had lived and I had kept playing hockey...
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