FOLLOWING THE YANKEES
Keeping family connections was the topic in recent blog posts. This week’s post centers on friends.
We traveled to Baltimore to meet with my husband’s childhood friends at a Yankees game in Baltimore on July 14, 2024. While they lost 6-5, and it was unbearably hot, seeing old friends was a win.
Those friends from their school days in Elizabeth, New Jersey, belong to a reunion group of friends living in the Washington, D.C. metro area. Throughout the years, they have been getting together regularly. During the pandemic, they moved their group meetings to Zoom and contacted my husband to join their circle.
At first, his reaction was, “Why get involved, I haven’t seen them in fifty years?” Instead, after I suggested he give it a try, now he’s eager to not only join in on the Zoom sessions every six weeks, but we both enjoy in-person get-togethers with the guys and their families in the D.C. metro area.
Fulfilling our list of states to visit, we traveled to Oklahoma in 2019. On that vacation, I surprised my husband with reservations at the Mickey Mantle restaurant in Mickey’s hometown of Oklahoma City, which happily has a pleasing vegan menu.
We left the restaurant, which is more like a museum serving food, with souvenir napkins showing the Yankees’ logo and memories to last a lifetime. For more on Oklahoma City, visit sharonmarkcohen.com, Why Oklahoma City?, dated September 10, 2019, and enjoy more photos.
Who says there’s nothing to do in North Dakota? A two-week trip in September, making the rounds to four states we had never visited before, had us touring through Nebraska, Iowa, South, and North Dakota. People, it’s worth it.
Talk about bringing back your childhood...a visit to the Maris Museum in Fargo, North Dakota, had us “sitting at the old Yankee Stadium in the early 1960s” and rooting for “the M boys.” After that, we took a short drive to the hometown hero’s grave.
Our next stop, Cleveland, Ohio, to await our new grandchild’s birth, coincided with the Yankees in town for what turned out to be the final playoff game against the Guardians (formerly the Cleveland Indians). We offered, tickets, anyone? Two nights before the baby’s birth our daughter-in-law suggested our son should go with us. A nail biter, but the Yanks clinched it 5-2 in the 10th.
On another trip to visit our family in Ohio, we met our son’s friend, a baseball card afficionado. He spent quality time discussing my husband’s collection. Maybe following the Yankees will pay off.
In 1962, Arnee sent Mickey a get-well card, the framed reply letter from Mickey hangs in our family room
In 1982 Arnee’s brother Bryan met Mickey at Echelon Mall in South Jersey and had him autograph this flyer
Sharon is seated next to Arnee, Dan Elson on Arnee’s right with his father Gary leaning back; Fred Johnstone in the row behind
During 7th-12th grade Arnee, Gary, and Fred attended school together in Elizabeth, New Jersey
Arnee and Fred were varsity players on the Jefferson High School baseball team, in Elizabeth, where Arnee played first base and they were both outfielders
Our old Yankee bobbleheads I recently salvaged from a box on the third floor
April 2024 Sharon with granddaughter Solly at Monument Park - Yankee Stadium
Sharon and Arnee September 2024 Maris Museum Fargo, North Dakota
Arnee pointing the same Maris card in the museum as in his personal collection
September 2024 On my visit to Maris’s grave in Fargo, North Dakota
Start ‘em young Our son Judd with his newborn son Dizzy watching the 2009 Yankees at Barnabas Med Center in Livingston, New Jersey, a day after the baby’s birth in July 2020
Arnee, Sharon, and Judd October 19, 2024 Cleveland, OH Yankees vs. Guardians The Yankees win! On to the World Series
Sharon and Arnee October 19. 2024 Cleveland, OH
Three generations of our family watching the Yankees play in the 2024 World Series. Arnee and our son Judd flank a sleeping brand new baby Easy.