http://www.mckevittpatrickfuneralhome.com/fh/resources/sympathy/?&fh_id=11137
God sends different people into our lives just when we need them. John was one of those people.
There were difficulties in my life that I shared with no one, including John, outside the confines of family. John's friendship was salve for my anxiety and depression. When we played baseball and basketball or swiped apples from the trees at Twin City Hospital my tension eased, a God-sent relief since there were no medical treatments then, just the admonishment get over it.
We built forts in the 'caves' area of town amid dense brush and trees and we roasted green apples over the campfire. Later we smoked cigarettes, making us feel grown-up. We played pocket-knife games for hours at my house on a cedar slab. Hot summer afternoons found us playing a table-top pinball machine I had received from Dad for Christmas.
John was the manager of the Red Sox Farm League baseball team and this team had the core of the Panthers of the previous season. The Panthers, a laughingstock lost just about all its games but a year later, with greater maturity and experience the Panthers, renamed Red Sox dominated the Ironwood Farm League of 1959, winning the league championship with a 13 and 2 record. I still have the team picture that appeared in the sports section of the Daily globe.
Our lives took us in different directions but I will never forget those experiences, the sharpness of a baseball against a wooden bat, the bark of Mr. Krznarich, the umpire and league Director. The awful taste of a green apple scorched over a fire on a stick, the searing cigarette smoke that made us hold ourselves from coughing. The feeling of a good friend.
I wrote a story about our exploits and John read and commented on it. It is at yooper517.blogspot.com
Sympathies to the Lewinski family,
George Nordling toivo44@gmail.com
