He wondered where

the cheerleaders were.

He didn’t expect to hear

them chant and watch

them leap and jump

and form a perky pyra-

mid immediately after

he bowed out, gave

his final farewell –

a bit like Lou Gehrig

addressing the throngs

who gathered on July

4^th 1939  in the Bronx’s

Holy of Holies, a place

where bombs went off

regularly in celebration,

but only to a small con-

gregation he had known

for a mere twenty months. 

But a few years later, he

did think it would be nice

if  someone pierced the

silence and said he was the

best – preacher, pastor, ad-

ministrator (a poet, a proph-

et, a priest and a king), but

he sits in silence and listens

to the roar of appreciation

or is that just the pesky ring-

ing in his ears at 6:54 a.m

on July 4th as he sips his 

French Press coffee now

that the Krups thirty-year-old

coffee maker the kids had

given his late wife had given

up the ghost just the day be-

fore? And so, he has himself

and, of course, the letters of

one Saul of Tarsus known,

post conversion, as Paul the

Apostle who called himself

the Least of All Apostles in

a tone filled with what sounds

like false modesty and who

probably would have loved

being addressed as Saint

Paul if he had lived long

enough to hear the acco-

lades which were still centur-

ies on down the line. Perhaps

as a way of coping with the

fact that Caesar was about

to put an end to his earthly

existence wrote, “I have fought

the good fight; I have finished

the race…” and in the spirit

of delayed gratification

concluded the thought with,

“…henceforth, there is a

crown…for me…” to be

placed upon his head some-

time in the future on the Day

when the bombs of joy get

belted out of the park like

Yankee Stadium in about

1934. He would take com-

fort in Paul’s postponement

if he believed in return

appearances by popular

demand but he had only

been asked back to a

congregation once in

forty-three years. So, for

now people crawl out of

bed, shower, eat break-

fast and go to work with-

out ever giving him so

much as a passing thought

if for no other reason than

they don’t know him from

Adam and those who do

have moved on with life

in most respects except

for those caught in a time

warp of hoping hope-

lessly for the Cubs who

continue to toil in the friendly

confines of Wrigley Field

where hardly is heard the

clear crack of the Louisville

Slugger on a ball for a

Texas Leaguer let alone a

home run.