Revisiting the Field of Miracles
"The first blind man ever to hit an inside-the-park Home Run!"
October 11, 2024
On Tuesday evening, September 24, 2024, I returned to the complex of Baseball diamonds faceted into New Orleans’ Riverside Park, behind the Audubon Zoo and beside murmur and Ships’ Horns of the Mississippi River.
Directions took me a smaller Baseball diamond among the fields (many for ongoing Soccer games among youth) and I got to observe, again, athletes in wheelchairs or without wheelchairs, assisted by ‘Angels in the Outfield’, as each set himself or herself in the Batter’s Box—as each then swung and hit a Pitch either tossed or perched atop a Tee—and then as each hustled as fast as he or she could, in chair or with wheeled Walker or on excitedly charging feet—to First Base, Second Base, Third, and Home.
Again, too, Touro Hospital and some Staff combined as the organizing body for this gathering of B. I. S. C. I. S.—Brain Injury Spinal Cord Injury Survivors
The scene was much reduced from the full-on Game between the Dreamers and the Believers teams of at least nine players, sharing the B. I. S. C. I. S. logos across their Yankees-like top-shirts, that Florence André of Touro and I watched in November 2010. That scene inspired the poem which became Story and Engine for the Track recorded by Rivers Answer Moons (in the configuration of ROGER LEWIS Saxophones, KIRK JOSEPH Sousaphone, DON VAPPIE Electric Guitar, and ALEXEY MARTI Congas) last July 30 within Dockside Studio of the Town of Milton and the Corporation of Maurice in Acadiana, Louisiana.
“We lost a lot of the athletes to COVID,” one volunteer, David, most frequently the Catcher, explained to me.
The much-reduced and far more improvised scene was nonetheless great, I felt—tonic and uplifting for everyone involved.
Two weeks later, October 7, I was back at Dockside with consummate engineer and sensitive musician JUSTIN TOCKET to mix ALL 12 Tracks of LOUISIANA STORIES. Favorable spirits and decades of know-how and—I’ll venture to say—whole-hearted commitment, enthusiasm and sympathy let us complete the Mixes the next afternoon, as Steve and Wish (Cézanne) Nails visited the Control Room.
Here are two Excerpts of ‘The Dreamers and the Believers’ enhanced Mix. You can play the Track, if you like, while looking at the Photos and Video-Stills that follow from the Field of Miracles, September 2024. The “magic” Rivers Answer Moons band is here, it’s worth saying again: ROGER LEWIS Saxophones, KIRK JOSEPH Sousaphone, DON VAPPIE Electric Guitar, and ALEXEY MARTI Congas and last-word Vocal.
The Dreamers and the Believers, Part 1 excerpt
“Jubilation! Ovation! Batters do go!”
The Dreamers and the Believers, Part 2 excerpt
“They all ask for you across parking-lots of New Orleans”
NORMAN is an unsighted player and DAVIDIA is his Angel in the Outfield.
LINDA SHINE (formerly BROWN) was the Catcher AND Home-Plate Umpire in the 2010 game between the Dreamers and the Believers. She’s still, as you can see, throwing light in September 2024.
The Swing.
And the Hit for this Player with a Walker!
Davidia and Norman are hurtling for Home Place as the Batter moves for 1st Base.
All ends well with a High-Five at Home, Davidia and Norman greeted by DAVID, this evening’s Catcher AND Home-Plate Umpire.
Linda scores too!
And the beats never stop, they never end.
The other Team rolls in for its At-Bats.
Turns dark as Goya’s Giant steps.
