want you to go to college. We always wanted you to go to college and be the first person in our family to get a college degree.”
“College would cost a lot of money, and I’m sure that we would not have enough to afford that.”
“Your father and I have been saving money since you were born so that you could go to college if you were smart enough,” she said. “And you are smart enough.”
In the fall of 1930, I applied and was accepted into the University of Pennsylvania. It was a very prestigious school and very expensive. I never knew how they did it, but my parents were somehow able to work out a deal where we did not have to pay very much for me to go there. I was sure that we could not afford it, but there I was, a freshman at the University of Pennsylvania.
By the time my third year came around, I had to decide on a major, and for me nothing stood out. The economy and business still had not recovered and the depression was hitting people very hard. I did not see any future in business, so I decided to study medicine. Even though this would mean extra years in medical school, my parents never complained. I was guessing that they made more money than I thought since it did not seem to be causing them any financial hardship.
It was in my third year of medical school that I had to decide what area of medicine I wanted to focus on.
“Have you thought about what field of medicine you want to concentrate on?” my mother asked.
“The more I think about it the more I realize that I would love to become a pediatrician. I can’t think of anything that could be more rewarding than helping sick children get better. I am sure that is what I was destined to do.”
While I was lying in bed the night before my graduation from medical school, I thought back to some of the times Johnny and I had growing up together. I was going over different things we did together in my mind, and some of the things we had said to each other. I remembered one conversation in particular. We were sitting in the clubhouse on a lazy Saturday afternoon and talking about what we wanted to do when we grew up.
“I would like to be a policeman or own a big store when I graduate from high school,” I said.
“What do you want to do when you grow up?” I asked Johnny.
Johnny had thought for a moment before answering.
“I want to be a children’s doctor and help kids that are sick,” he had replied.
A cold shiver went through my body, and I recalled the conversation. I wondered if I had subconsciously chosen this path to try to fulfill the dream that Johnny had and would never realize. I reached down on the floor next to my bed, picked up the warm army blanket, and wrapped myself in it to try to fight off the chill.
41
After I graduated from medical school, I opened up a small practice in Kensington, just two blocks from the house where I grew up. I came back to my old neighborhood because that was the world where I felt most comfortable. I opened an office in a small empty storefront on the corner of Allegheny Avenue. It was next door to a butcher shop.
Kensington was the kind of place where people desperately needed medical help, but could rarely afford it. The economy was just starting to improve, but it had not trickled down to help the working class people of Kensington yet.
Sometimes they would be able to pay for my services, and other times they would promise to pay me later. Either way I never turned anyone away. Most times people would come back and pay me at least partially, if they could not afford to pay my whole bill. There were times that the children’s parents would pay me back with a free service that they were able to perform, or with an apple pie that they would bake and that was fine with me.
I moved in to a small apartment on Tulip Street, within walking distance of my office. It wasn’t fancy, but I enjoyed living there. Mrs. McManus was my landlord; she treated me as if I was her son.
“How about I make you dinner tonight when you get back from your office?” she would say every morning as I left for work.
“I don’t want you to go through all that trouble just for me Mrs. McManus.”
“It’s no trouble, I have to make something for myself anyway,” she would say.
“I can stop at a restaurant on the way home.”
“Absolutely not, you come home at six and I’ll have a hot meal waiting for you.”
I visited my parents often, and loved going in my old room and lying down on the bed. I would close my eyes and go back to the times when Johnny and I played there together. All the memories of my youth were fond, except for the hole that was ripped into them the day Johnny left.
In the fall of 1942, my father was diagnosed with cancer; he was dead within eight weeks.
I began visiting my mother almost every day after that. She seemed to lose her zest for life after he died.
“Mom you gotta get out more, you stay in the house all the time.”
“Everything seems hard without your father,” she replied. “I just don’t have the energy that I used to have.”
“The more you get out and exercise the more energy you’ll have.”
“I’ll try, we’ll see what happens,” she would say.
Though she had never been ill a day in her life, my mother died in the winter of 1943, perhaps a result of a broken heart.
When she died, I thought about selling their house. I talked about it with Mrs. McManus.
“I want to sell my parents house,” I said to her.
“Why would you do that?” she asked. “Wouldn’t it be a good place for you to live?”
“I hadn’t really thought about it, I’m pretty comfortable right here,” I said.
“Don’t you want to have a family some day, you’re not going to be able to raise a proper family living here,” she replied.
“Are you trying to get rid of me Mrs. McManus?”
“Not at all, I just want you to meet a nice girl and have a family of your own. You’re going to need a lot more room than you have here for that.”
Mrs. McManus was right. I decided to move back to my boyhood home to live out my life. Even though the neighborhood was getting worse, I still loved living there. There was no place in the world I felt as safe and secure as I did when I was in that house. I would continue to stop by Mrs. McManus’ house every Friday night for her famous fried fish dinner.
I still followed baseball and went to Philadelphia Athletics games whenever I could. The team was never very good in those days. We were in last place constantly, but I still enjoyed the games. Connie Mack was in his late eighties, and remarkably still managed the club. He had been their manager for nearly fifty years.
I had watched as the career of Babe Ruth soared and he had set records that may never be equaled in the history of baseball. By the spring of 1947 there were stories starting to pop up in the newspaper that made it clear that something was wrong with Babe. They said he was sick, but they never seemed to report the details of his ailment. There seemed to be a purposeful vagueness to the reporting.
I found out later that most of the newspaper writers knew he had cancer, but they never put the word in print. They would describe how he looked and report what his doctors would say to the press, but never used the word cancer. I also heard later that even the Babe’s doctors never told Ruth all they knew about his disease. It was a conspiracy of kindness, to somehow shield the big man from the truth.
There is no way of knowing if Ruth knew how sick he was, and at the time, I did not know that his illness was terminal. As the 1947 baseball season was about to start, they announced that there would be a “Babe Ruth Day”, held in Yankee Stadium on April 27th. For a brief moment, I contemplated going, but then decided that getting tickets and traveling to New York for the game would be too hard.
One day in mid April when I arrived home from my office, I found a Western Union telegram waiting for me. I had never gotten a telegram before, and I felt my stomach drop as I took it into my hands. I do not know why, but I could only imagine that this was going to be some sort of bad news. I held it betw
een two hands, and paused a moment before opening it.
There was a slight tremble in my hands as I ripped it open. My eyes immediately jumped to the bottom of the page where I saw the name of the sender. It was signed “Johnny Garrity.” I read the name two or three more times to make sure. It had been twenty-three years since I had heard anything from Johnny and I had been sure that he was long dead.
The printing on the page began to blur a bit, as my eyes had a hard time focusing. My heart felt like it would leap from my chest. I read each word very slowly.
“I am sorry I have not gotten in touch with you sooner. I have been living in New York City for the past twenty years. You must have heard about the big tribute game they are having at Yankee Stadium for the Babe. I got two tickets and am mailing one of them to you. I hope you can come up for the game. Maybe it will make up for the other game we didn’t get to watch together. Your Friend always, Johnny”
I could not believe it, not only was Johnny alive, but it seemed as though his life was going well. Maybe things had worked out for him after all. I felt a giant sense of relief, all these years I had feared the worst about Johnny, and now I finally knew he was alive and hopefully very well.
42
There was no return address on the telegram. No clues as to how I could contact Johnny. I read it over and over, trying to glean any information that I could from the words Johnny used. There was nothing.
I rushed to the mailbox each day after that,
Me, Johnny, and The Babe Page 32