St. Tommy Forever More.
There's a beautiful wisdom in the familiar bumper sticker that so cleverly and warmly honors the long-defunct West Philadelphia high school.
It speaks to impermanence, the power of memory, the joys and sorrows of being a sports fan.
Take a look around. All those teams you worship, those places you went with your dad, those sportswriters you read and broadcasters you listened to on hot summer nights? None of them are immortal.
The Brooklyn Dodgers moved. Wilt Chamberlain died. Bill Conlin quit in disgrace. They tore down the Vet.
We spend a lifetime collecting allegiances and habits, likes and dislikes until all that mental memorabilia helps define us, helps give the passing years and events a familiar, comfortable shape.
I'll always associate Carlton Fisk's home run in Game 6 of the '75 World Series with my oldest daughter's birth. All those high school nights at the Palestra linger with me long after I've forgotten calculus and Chaucer. And that summer of 1964? Nightmares Forever More.
But like the youthful faces in yearbooks or the sturdy Catholic League schools that seemed eternal fortresses, each generation's familiar sports landscape gradually melts away.
Generations of St. Tommy More students, after all, believed it would always be there. Today the building at 47th and Wyalusing houses an Islamic school.
And the things that replace our landmarks are often unrecognizable, even if they are the stuff of another generation's sports memories.
The real evaporates into memories, memories we can either discard or cherish.
Younger fans can't imagine why we'd choose the latter. They're convinced their heroes stand alone and surely will live forever. So they dismiss ours as black-and-white relics.
I was the same way, maybe worse.
Often when my father talked about Joe McCarthy, Joe Louis or Joe Fulks, I tuned him out. It was all from his irrelevant world. Why couldn't he appreciate Ali? Dick Allen? Billy Melchionni?
I understand why now.
You hold on especially tight when something's slipping away.
There's nothing to be ashamed of in maintaining our sports memories. We are, after all, as fans and human beings, little more than flesh-and-blood collections of our own experiences. To discount them is to diminish existence.
At 62, the list of extant people, places and things that marked my formative years as a Philly sports fan grows smaller each year, like a Tastykake Chocolate Junior.
