probably should have discussed this with you before now, but I would like you to have this,” I said as I reached out my quivering hand and opened the jewelry box.
“I want to marry you and spend every day together. I want you to be there to greet me every day when I come home. I want to have children and raise a family together. I want to live the rest of our lives together in Kensington.”
I closed my eyes, held my breath and waited.
We married in June of 1952.
Marriage was the greatest. I never felt alone anymore and Margaret became my best friend. I never realized how lonely I was coming home to an empty home every night until I contrasted it with coming home to Margaret and her warm conversation and a hot meal. I was clearly in the sweet spot of life and enjoyed every day to the fullest.
“You know, when you retire we can travel all over the world,” Margaret would say.
“I never thought about retiring before, but maybe I would like to see the rest of the world with you. After all there’s has to be more to the world than Kensington.”
One day, when Margaret was cleaning the bedroom where I slept while I was growing up, she called me in to help flip the mattress over. I dutifully came to her aid and pushed the mattress onto its side.
“Here you hold that side while I flip it over,” she said.
As I lifted the mattress, I noticed Margie reach underneath and pull out an old newspaper.
“What’s this old Philadelphia Inquirer doing under here? Were you hiding it from someone?” she asked.
“No, I wasn’t hiding it,” I said, “in fact I completely forgot that it was there.”
“It is from September 5th 1923,” she said. “Did something important happen?”
“Not really.”
“Something must have happened. Why would you have kept it otherwise?’
“Well, something happened that was pretty important to me.”
“It was the day after Babe Ruth came to Kensington and played in a game at Boger Field and believe it or not I got to meet him.”
“I was only about three years old so I don’t know anything about it.”
“You do know who Babe Ruth was. Don’t you?”
“Of course I know who Babe Ruth was, everybody knows The Babe. I know he hit a lot of home runs but I never heard anything about him coming to Kensington to play.”
“Well he did come to Kensington and it was quite a game.”
“Did you get to go to the game?”
I thought for a moment before answering. Did I really want to tell her the story of Me, Johnny, and the Babe; it would be so much simpler to just answer no. I placed the flipped mattress back down on the bed, and sat Margie down next to me and told her this story. It was the first time I spoke to anyone about any of this, and now she would know things that only Johnny and I knew. I told her every wonderful and painful detail. Even though the story went on for hours, she listened intently. She hugged me as I got to the end and she could see the tears streaming down my face as I spoke about Johnny. It is a very emotional story for me to tell.
One day in July of 1953, I found an interesting article in newspaper. Apparently, they had found some skeletal remains at a construction site in Kensington. They were digging the foundation for a new factory they were building and came across a skeleton that police estimated had been there for thirty years or more. The police spokesman was quoted in the newspaper as saying that there were no clues to its identity and that even though they were sure that there had been a murder involved, that they would probably never solve it since any clues had long ago disappeared.
A few months later, in October of 1953, Margie told me that she was expecting and the baby was due in April. Life just could not get any better.
On April 3rd, we were blessed with a child. We had a little boy, who was born at 5 pounds and 2 ounces. His birth was the greatest moment of my life, and I cried as I held him in my arms for the first time. A few moments later I cried for a second time when Margie suggested that we should name him John, but we could call him Johnny.
Me, Johnny, and The Babe Page 38
