ROME, BASEBALL, & HOME [Saturday, 5-10-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Memories of An Old Man—ROME, BASEBALL, & HOME [Saturday, 5-10-25]

 

With the election of the Chicago pope, I have been thinking about my travel-study trip to Rome. I don’t intend to go to Rome again, to discuss the White Sox with Leo XIV, because the Swiss Guards have my photo on the wall at St. Peter’s Basilica, with a red slash mark through it. They threw me out of there twice in one day, but that’s a different story. This one is about trying to cross a street in Rome.

 

When we traveled, Helen and I often formed a trio with some person traveling alone. It’s just nicer for a solitary traveler to have others with whom to share meals and excursions. So, when we were in Rome, Columbia Seminary professor Will Ormond became our third person. It was great for us, because Will already knew a lot about Rome. So it was that he suggested the three of us go to L’Eau Vive for supper one night.

 

It is a beautiful atmosphere. Nuns from all over the world are the servers, mostly dressed in their native garb. From time to time, with no discernible signal, each stops where they are and they start singing. It’s like a choir of angels.

 

So we were feeling good when we started walking “home,” to the Faculta Waldensa, the only Protestant theological seminary in Rome, our home for the two weeks of our travel seminar sponsored by Princeton’s American Summer Institute.

 

That’s when the problem came, in the form of Rome traffic at night. Rome traffic is bad enough in the day time. Drivers pay no attention to red lights. If you are a pedestrian, and you have the green light, it makes no difference to the drivers. What you do is walk out in front of them, make eye contact with the driver, and make it clear that you intend to keep on walking. It helps if you hold up a furled umbrella to show your lack of fear. Make it clear that if the driver wants to keep on, he’ll have to run over you. That works most of the time, because the only thing worse than the traffic in Rome is the bureaucracy when you have to fill out papers after you have run over someone.

But Helen was a home economist. Will was a homiletics professor. They had no idea how to face down the Rome traffic, especially at night, when it’s hard to make eye contact with drivers, especially on the 8 lanes of The Via La Morte. [Probably not its real name, but it should have been.] I, however, carried an umbrella for just that reason. I said, “Come on,” held up my umbrella, and started out.

I got across to the other side. Helen, however, somehow got marooned on the “safety” island in the middle of the road, and Will had retreated all the way back to the start side. So, first, I held up my umbrella, went and got Helen and dragged her to the home side, then worked my way back to Will, got him by the arm, and forced him and the drivers of Rome to cooperate long enough to get us back to the side where we belonged.

I often think of our Roman escapade during baseball season.

Baseball also is all about returning home, after a perilous journey around the bases, with temporary oases of salvation at each base. Our feet are restless until they find their rest in… the dugout after reaching home. [1]

It’s not impossible. It’s not too late. Just hold up your umbrella, look the devil in the eye, and start across…

I think I’ll send this to the new White Sox fan at the Vatican…

John Robert McFarland

1] A riff on St. Augustine’s prayer, Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee.