As one only a couple of months away from graduating from college and entering the tumultuous world of adulthood I have begun to develop a growing awareness of the reality of aging. Sooner than I would ever prefer I will leave the inviting cocoon I have previously spent my life within, the shelter where I have enjoyed the ease of having my needs provided for by loving parents, the lack of too much responsibility, and the infinite expanse of my dreams and the possible. My childhood is nearly gone, sinking away like the last grains of sand in an hourglass.
This awareness isn't comforting. Dreams unchallenged are now to be responsibilities incapable of being avoided. It's time to be a man, on my own and for the first time responsible for the provision of my own well-being. That means finding and maintaining a job, paying the rent and bills, buying food, buying a car and all of the other tedious necessities of adulthood.
I don't presume to speak for others of my generation but if I had to guess I would believe they are feeling something of the same sense of unease. If we could turn back time – go back home and have everything provided for, live without care, dream unchallenged – we would. But alas we can't; we must press forward – both determined and hopeful – and make our way in an uncertain world replete with turmoil and uncertainty.
Nevertheless it has been said that life is full of little consolations, and mine is the return of Ken Griffey, Jr. I am no different from any Northwest male around my age. We grew up spending our summer nights at home or in the Kingdome, often with our fathers, waiting for each at bat, each new opportunity to witness that sweet upper-cut swing send another unfortunate baseball deep into the red seats of right field. We would cheer when the Kid would then drop his bat, walk a few steps down the first base line gazing at his unique work of art, and then easily jog around the bases to home plate, always too cool to so much as crack a smile or to give any indication that hitting moon-shots over outfield fences was anything other than what he was born to do. And then, whether there was light out enough to or not, we would run out into our back yards and do it all ourselves – turn our hat backwards, straighten ourselves into that stiff batting stance that only Junior has, and pretend we were doing the same thing.
Those days were childhood, they were happiness. On that awful day that he left, when most of our hearts were broken for the first time, we began the process of growing up. The Kid was gone and our boyhoods would slowly go with him. Since that one catalyzing moment we've learned many lessons and have done a lot of maturing. We've graduated from high school, taken up summer and part time jobs, entered the permanent work force or gone to college. Some of those dreams we still have, but a great many more have flown away forever. We approach full adulthood at the same time we confront reality in all of its starkness.
But at least Griffey is back. Sure it won't be as it was before. Since his absence he's done as much growing as we have. He's battled injury and seen his skills slowly taken away from him by that over-bearing tax man, Time. He's no longer a gazelle in centerfield but a fragile leftfielder or designated-hitter who will inevitably get a few days off each week to rest his aging and surgically-reconstructed body. Back when Griffey was "the Kid" we expected nothing less than fifty home-runs each year; now we'll be elated with twenty-five.
But he's still back. He's back to don the 24 once more, back to remind all of us in the Northwest of the glories of a time past, and hopefully back to create new glories still.
To all of us who were kids when he was "the Kid," he's back to console us with warm memories of a time now completely gone. And as we are exposed to that first realization of aging, of losing youth to the ceaseless passage of time, he's back to teach us one more lesson about growing up. No matter how old we get – no matter how far we are removed from the homes of our childhood and the warm protection of our parents – we will always be young and we will always be able to come home through the fond memories of our youth. They are there now and always shall be, ready to be summoned when life gets too stressful and existence too dull. Regardless of our age it is through our memories that we shall always be young.
Welcome home, Junior, and thanks for bringing us back with you.
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