Marion Park
This summer has been really outstanding thus far, partly because I was able to travel back to Michigan’s beautiful Upper Peninsula for a long 4th of July holiday weekend. It had been nearly two and a half years since I had been back to visit my family. My 2020 trip got canceled because of COVID and Zeus getting sick and having to be put down the weekend I was supposed to be in Michigan. It was amazing getting to spend time with family and relax around some people that I truly trust. There is something to be said about people who don’t expect me to be anything but myself. As an added bonus, I got to catch up with some childhood friends that I, sadly, don’t get to see nearly often enough. The great thing about that group of guys is that we immediately fall back into our old friendships. It’s like we haven’t seen each other in five minutes even though it’s really been five years and life has dramatically changed for all of us.
I’ve been slowly building a collection of kettlebells back home, and I now have two 24s and a newly added 32. On my first morning home, I loaded my bells into my rental car and headed out to Marion Park, a large recreational area that includes baseball fields, tennis courts, pavilions, playgrounds, and a set of pull-up bars that is just tall enough for me to use. It was a beautiful sunny morning and I was able to comfortably train in nothing but a pair of gym shorts. The actual workout can be found in my training log, so I won’t re-hash it again, but I want to elaborate on Marion Park and the huge role it played in my life. When I really sat down and thought about it, I realized that so many childhood memories took place at that park.
Some of my earliest memories are playing tee ball and what we called minor league baseball out at Marion Park. One time in tee ball, I took a huge swing, missed the stationary ball, and swung all the way around and accidentally let go of my bat, throwing it at my coach. I still remember the guy’s name, and I would still argue that he should be considered for sainthood. In minor league, we had this really old school coach who would berate any kid who made a mistake. “What’s the matter?! You got a hole in your glove?!” was a classic mantra if anyone missed a grounder. He was brutal but hilarious. My sister Stacy could hit the shit out of the ball, and our team, the Cubs, actually won the championship that year. I was so excited as it was the first trophy I ever won. It’s probably still at my parents’ house somewhere.
A few years later, my friends and I all played Little League baseball at Marion Park, representing various small town civic organizations like Kiwanis, Moose, the Lions Club, and the VFW. For many of us, this was our first time playing a legit organized sport with a designated season, intense coaches, uniforms, daily practices, and games a few nights per week. I’d love to know how many hundreds of hours I spent on that baseball field, playing my heart out and trying to make my coaches proud. Wins, losses, and life lessons happened on those fields. I made friends, got yelled at, felt like I made my parents proud, laughed, cried, fought, and grew up a bit.
When I was in elementary and middle school, we would take field trips to Marion Park in the spring. This was always an amazing time where my friends and I would fool around, make up games, accidentally hit line drives directly into my friend Jenny’s face from about 10 feet away, and die laughing when Mr. Vivio gave his culinary opinion on grilled hot dogs by stating, “I hope they burn those fuckers.”
In seventh and eighth grade, we used the outfield of one of the baseball fields for Pop Warner football practice in the fall. For my friends and me, this was our first time getting to play full contact football. Our practices were definitely old school with lots of hitting and doing drills that are now banned. We didn’t care. We loved our coaches and being out there with our friends, sweating, sometimes freezing, and working towards a common goal. This field now has a new scoreboard that is dedicated to Mike Maule, a man who will definitely get his own post in the future. Mike wasn’t a teacher at the school, but he gave an incredible amount to the community by coaching Little League baseball, Pop Warner football, and middle school basketball. Mike passed away a few years ago, and seeing his name up on that scoreboard choked me up big time. He was an amazing man who spent a ton of time helping me develop and improve in life.
My buddy Hammer’s dad Mike hosted a classic car and bike show out at Marion Park that was just amazing. There were so many people there with beautiful old school muscle cars and badass Harley-Davidson motorcycles. It felt like a big event in our small town and I give Mike a ton of credit for making the effort to organize it. Because he’s a great guy, Mike let my buddy Hammer and me help out with the judging for the best car in the show. We were young kids and I certainly didn’t know shit about cars, but Hammer and I tried to do our best. There were two clear favorites in the running, a classic black 1968 Camaro and what I think was a late-50’s Bel Air that was all red and white with a Coca-Cola theme. I could be way wrong on the make and model of the Coke car, but it was something like that. The Camaro owner was this real cocky guy who had pictures of his car with all the car show trophies he had won over the years while the Coke car owner was this nice quiet guy who just seemed happy to be there hanging out and enjoying the atmosphere. Hammer and I gave the trophy to the Camaro, but later that day, out of nowhere, Hammer said, “We should’ve given it to the Coke guy.” You were right, Buddy. You were right.
There are too many other Marion Park memories to count including meetings girls out there at night when my friends and I first discovered that girls were awesome could hold a spell over us, random tennis outings, and summer adult league soccer during our college years. Marion Park has changed a little bit over the years, but it has also stayed remarkably the same. I think the same could be said about my old hometown and the people who live there, and that’s just fine.