He Never Got His Shot

The Little League World Series baseball tournament in Williamsport, Pennsylvania is one of the jewels of summer, especially for boys and girls ages 11 through 13. Little League rules allow girls to play with the boys, however the teams from the around the world consist primarily of boys.

I love watching these kids play baseball because they do it for the purest reason – they love the game. Most of these kids are extremely talented and their teams have won every game in their area, district, state, region, and in some cases country. Every game has powerful hitting and tremendous defensive plays. I’m constantly amazed by what I see.

Watching the Little League World Series also is sad for me, especially since the series is annually during a time when I’m depressed anyway. The series begins a couple of weeks after Nik has gone home after spending the summer in Arizona. I’m sad because Nik never got his chance to be the ballplayer he could have been.

I don’t know if Nik would have been good enough to be one of his little league’s all-stars, or if that team would have been able to win all the games in order to get to Williamsport. What I do know is Nik never got his chance.

Nik heads for third during a game in 2005.

Nik was first eligible for T-Ball at 5, and I signed him up to play in the Mooresville (Indiana) Little League. He enjoyed it and after a few games and practices, he was able to hit the ball tossed softly to him. But that was the only time he was allowed to play.

A few weeks after his season ended, I got the job offer that led me to move to Arizona. As I’ve mentioned before, Nik’s mother and I developed together the plan for me to go ahead, get our living arrangements established, and then she and Nik would join me. It was not until I got here that she told me she had “changed my mind” and she destroyed our family. Nik asked her to sign him up for little league a couple of years, but she didn’t do it, telling him the games were during the time he is supposed to be with me. That was a lie, because the little league season is in April and May. The only time he would play in June and July would be if he was an all-star, and if was, I would have happily sacrificed my time.

The reason she didn’t sign him up is she didn’t want to sit through practices and she couldn’t afford it. I don’t see how living in poverty, not getting opportunities and experiences, and living 7/8^th of the year away from the primary male role model is “in the best interest of the child”, especially a boy.

Former professional baseball player and current coach for the Arizona Diamondbacks said in an interview: “Let me fail. Even if I fail, I at least had my chance. If I don’t have a chance, then I can’t succeed.”

We’ll never know if Nik could have been a good baseball player or good in any sport because he never got his chance.

Today is My Father’s Day

My Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, has blessed me so much more than I deserve.

He led me through the ups and downs and twists and turns to the most amazing woman in the world, Amy Morales. (You may think “the most amazing woman in the world” is someone else, but this is my blog and I say the most amazing woman in the world is Amy!) He gave me two terrific parents who are loving and generous to me and loving and dedicated to each other and their marriage. I have a terrific extended family of aunts, uncles, cousins, my cousins’ children, and Amy’s two daughters, their respective husbands and their currently developing babies. I have a number of great friends. I’ve never been without food or shelter. And there are the billions upon gazillions of other blessings I have no clue He’s given me.

As fantastic as each of those blessings are, none of them compares to the gift He gave me 12 years ago today: my son, Nikolas.

Nikolas Scott William Daravanis was born at 11:40 a.m. May 10, 2000. My life has never been the same.

He has made me laugh so many times, like the day he stopped me in my tracks while I was heading toward the bathroom. Parents know that during the potty-training stage, they will go blue in the face asking “Do you have to go potty?” This particular day, Nik and I were about to go to the town’s park and before we left the house, I said “Do you have to go potty?” He didn’t but I did, so I told my son who was standing at the door waiting for me, “Well Daddy does, so when I’m done, we’ll go (to the park).” At that moment, this 3-foot tall 3-year-old suddenly came up with a deep James-Earl-Jones-type voice and said, “A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.”

Nik also is the source of my favorite two word phrase. Whenever I would come home from work, the first thing I would hear is “Daddy’s Home!” I’ve lived in a couple of places since then, but every time I cross the front door threshold, I hear in my mind “Daddy’s Home!” What followed, however, was not so great. Nik would run as fast as he could from the back room to the front door to hug me. How is that not great, you ask? At 4-years-old, Nik was just the right height that his forehead was on the same level as my crotch. I had two choices. I either got out of the way like a matador evading a charging bull, which would result in Nik plowing into the front door, or I scoop him up before he had me “singing soprano.” I chose the latter, although I didn’t always succeed.

I spend more time worrying about Nik than anything else these days, not because of what Nik does or says, but because of the selfish acts of his mother. In 2005, she broke her promises to me and her vows to God and destroyed our family unit. I’ve written numerous times the damage a boy growing up without his father’s physical presence causes. Studies from multiple and unrelated sources show drug, alcohol and cigarette use and criminal activity increase and self-esteem and educational success decline when children are raised in broken homes. I am doing what I can to help Nik buck that trend. I call him at least once a week, I never end our conversation without telling Nik that I love him, and I do not hang up before he does. And I never, ever miss a visitation period no matter what the sacrifice.

Because I live in Arizona and Nik lives primarily in Indiana, he and I are physically together only 9 weeks per year – one week at Christmas, one week during his school’s Spring Break and seven during the summer. Nine weeks equals 63 days – 63 out of 365 days per year that I can hug, kiss, mentor, coach and be an example and inspiration for Nik. I strive to make every second of those 63 days valuable and memorable. I’m thankful that he is appreciating my efforts.

He will occasionally send me an e-mail or text that says “I love you, dad.” This past March when he had the flu and wasn’t feeling good, he called me and said “Whenever I talk to you, I feel better, so that’s why I called.” I am so very, very blessed.

The Bible tells us that we should place our troubles upon the shoulders of the Lord and not worry. I’m really trying to follow that directive, but I still worry about the future. We do not know what will happen tomorrow, but there is one eternal fact.

Nikolas will always be my son and I will always be his dad.

Bigger Than He Looks

When I started this quasi and inconsistent journal, I wanted to document some of my thoughts and feelings, and record my ancestors’ lives.

Papou at his sweet shop in 1929.

In January 2010, I started digging into my ancestry. I noticed that, over time, an entire life gets reduced to statistics and a tombstone. I want my great-grandchildren and beyond to know me better than I know my great-grandparents and beyond.

I’ve praised my sweetheart, Amy; I’ve written about fatherhood, journalism, stupid things people say to the disabled, and buying a rat for Christmas; but not much about my ancestors on either my father’s or my mother’s side.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been focusing on my paternal grandfather, Louis Daravanis. I knew that Papou (the Greek word for grandfather) was born October 15, 1899 in Saranda Exclesis, Turkey; emigrated to the United States by himself at 16; owned and worked in eating establishments in Chicago, Illinois and Gary, Indiana; married my Yia Yia (the Greek word for grandmother) in 1933; had four children, my father being the second child; and died on June 16, 1978. Of course, Louis Daravanis had a much more interesting life than one long sentence divided by semi-colons.

Louis was a “rabble-rouser” as a teenager. At 16, he was arrested for participating in a student protest, most likely opposing Turkey’s military aggression toward Greece. Though he was born in Turkey, Papou’s parents and grandparents were Greek, and Papou always considered himself a Greek. Papou’s father and brothers broke Papou out of jail and put him on a ship called the Patris heading for America.

My grandfather was a fugitive.

“He never wanted to go back to Greece, even as a tourist, because he was sure he was going to be re-arrested,” my father told me. “We (my dad and his siblings) told him, ‘Dad, that was many years ago. No one would remember,’ but he wouldn’t do it. He was too afraid.”

It’s been more than three decades since I was 16, but knowing what I was like at that time in my life, I can’t imagine going to a strange country where I did not know the language. Papou did, and survived.

The Patris docked in New York on September 13, 1915. He was placed in quarantine until his admittance hearing three days later.

“First and second class passengers who arrived in New York Harbor were not required to undergo the inspection process at Ellis Island. The Federal government felt that these more affluent passengers would not end up in institutions, hospitals or become a burden to the state,” a report on the history of Ellis Island states. “This scenario was far different for ‘steerage’ or third class passengers. These immigrants traveled in crowded and often unsanitary conditions near the bottom of steamships with few amenities, often spending up to two weeks seasick in their bunks during rough Atlantic Ocean crossings. Upon arrival in New York City, ships would dock at the Hudson or East River piers. The steerage and third class passengers were transported from the pier by ferry or barge to Ellis Island where everyone would undergo a medical and legal inspection.”

Five years later, Papou’s parents and siblings made their way to America. Their immigration papers note they would be staying with cousin Christos Georges in Hart, Michigan. I assume that is where Papou lived between 1915 and 1920. How he got from New York to Michigan – if that is what happened – I do not know.

2467 N. Clark in Chicago as it looks today.

The Daravanises eventually settled in Chicago. Thanks to the research desk at the Chicago Historical Society, I learned that Papou, his older brother George and his younger brother Nick owned and operated the Blackstone Sweet Shop at 2467 N. Clark during the late 1920s. Papou probably made and sold chocolates, pastries, candies and ice cream, along with coffee, soda and lemonade. A regular – maybe even daily – customer at Blackstone Sweet Shop was gangster George “Bugs” Moran. I remember my Yia Yia, who passed away in 1991, saying that, one day, Papou could not make Moran’s favorite treat because Papou was out of sugar, so Moran drove Papou to a warehouse packed with sugar. Sugar was an item gangsters hoarded so they could make beer and moonshine during prohibition. Yia Yia said from that moment on, whenever Papou was out of sugar, all he had to do was get word to Moran, and Papou could get as much sugar as he needed.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Moran’s biggest rival, Al Capone, also was one of Papou’s customers. The Blackstone Sweet Shop was three blocks north of Moran’s meeting place, which on February 14, 1929 was the location of the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. Capone’s men, dressed as Chicago police officers, used the guise of a police raid to enter Moran’s hideout and kill seven of Moran’s henchmen. Capone’s goal for the fake raid was to “rub-out” Moran, but he wasn’t there. According to history books, Moran was five minutes late to a planned 10:30 a.m. meeting. No one knows why he was late. I’m going to theorize that earlier that morning, Moran made a sugar delivery to my grandfather. I have no proof, of course, but it sounds cool. My “fugitive” Greek grandfather saved the life of one of America’s most notorious criminals.

In the early 1940s, Papou moved his family to northwest Indiana, and after working as a cook for a time, bought the People’s Lunch Room at 1420 Broadway in Gary. My dad told me Papou, again with his brother Nick, cooked and served a variety of meals 24-hours per day. You could say the People’s Lunch Room was a precursor to today’s Denny’s Restaurant.

Papou’s rules for the People’s Lunch Room were Gary police officers could get a free meal every day and free coffee whenever they wanted, and no one should spend the day hungry, such as Tom “the appliance guy.”

Yia Yia and Papou in 1973.

“Tom repaired appliances a few doors down the road. At that time, it was nothing to take a fan or toaster to someone to repair,” my Aunt Mary told me. She said Tom slept on a cot in the back room of his shop. “Every day, your Yia Yia or I would take meals to him. One day, your Papou found Tom dead in the back room. I remember your Papou telling the funeral director that this man had no family, that he was going to try to sell the stuff in (Tom’s) store, and whatever your Papou made was all this man had. After everything was done, I remember going to the cemetery and visiting the grave. There was just a small marker on the ground. Your Papou said that that was unacceptable. We went to the (cemetery) office and he bought, out of his own pocket, a head stone for the man. Who would do that today?”

My paternal grandfather was not a big man physically (maybe 5’ 5” and 130 pounds), but Louis Daravanis stood up for those in need and those who protect, and against those who sought to oppress and destroy. That is very big in my book.

‘It’s the Media’s Fault’: No Longer a Lame Excuse

The earth is shaking. Do you feel it?

It’s not an earthquake. It’s not that climactic blast of coital bliss. It’s Joseph Pulitzer rolling over in his grave.

Joseph Pulitzer

“A free press should always fight for progress and reform, never tolerate injustice or corruption, always fight demagogues of all parties, never belong to any party, always oppose privileged classes and public plunderers, never lack sympathy with the poor, always remain devoted to the public welfare.”

This year, 2012, is an election year. In November, America’s populace will determine who will be the Commander in Chief for the next four years. You would hope that the members of that populace would use logic and knowledge to make the best choice on who will lead the country toward a prosperous future while correcting problems of the past.

I don’t see that happening.

Americans of voting age cannot form a legitimate opinion because their primary source of education – the televised media – sides with one of America’s two political parties, supports the demagogues who are part of the privileged class, and has a slanted vision of progress that is devoted to their futures, not to the public welfare.

It really hurts me to type that because journalism – true journalism – has been a lifelong passion of mine. Journalism fed my family and me for more than 20 years. Being a journalist drove me, excited me, and challenged me. And though I am no longer affiliated with a television, radio or print news organization, I consider myself a journalist. I’m not always proud to say that anymore.

It is not coincidence that the polarizing of Americans coincides with the polarizing of the media. Because of the sensory overload of our current age, Americans do not dedicate the effort to fully learn about the public issues and the various ideas to solve the problems. Instead they set their televisions to Fox News or MSNBC and let the opinions of biased anchors and programmers fill the air with ambient noise. Soak within that toxic stew long enough and the toxins will invade your body.

Fox News unabashedly sides with the far right conservative Republican ideology while MSNBC stakes claim to the equally far left liberal Democratic philosophy. Each are examples of the Communist way of spreading propaganda – tell the people who they will like, who they will hate, what they will do and what they better not do.

True journalism shows the viewer, listener or reader both sides of a dispute and believes that each person is smart enough to form his or her own opinion. And in the process of presenting that information, true journalism does not denigrate or interrupt the presenter of the information because the presentation is contrary to the journalist’s personal point of view.

The people vying to become the President of the United States of America – a misnomer since very little is united around America these days – should be telling us how they can contribute to the welfare and future of the nation, not spend all their time telling us how “horrible” the other guy is. These people are in the middle of a year-long job interview. I’ve gone through job interviews, as I’m sure you have, and I’ve led job interviews, and in all instances the best candidate for the job proved why he or she is the best, not because they were “less horrible” than the other candidates.

Almost 45 years ago – April 4, 1968, the day Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated – Robert F. Kennedy, who himself was running for president, told supporters in Indianapolis:  

“In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States, it's perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in.

“What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is love, and wisdom, and compassion toward one another.”

None of the people currently campaigning to be the next president is smarter or more clairvoyant than the other, but each has ideas that, put together with other ideas, will move the country forward. The Founding Fathers combined the positive contributions of each man to “form a more perfect union.”

It is long past due time that the current Fathers – and especially the current journalists – start contributing instead of dividing.