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Cultivating shared interests bears a fruitful harvest
By LaVERNE HAMMOND Like many couples, my husband and I liked different things. He was a lifelong sport's fan. He wasn't a fanatic, though. He never wore caps with the Chicago Cubs logo on it, although he faithfully followed the team's games. He didn't go around with a wedge of cheese on his head, although he avidly watched the Green Bay Packers. He just liked sports. I think it was a guy thing. Whenever he got together with his buddies, the first thing they talked about was sports. I had a long-standing passion for antiques. Even as a young girl, I loved to collect them. A beautiful handpainted urn with an antique gold handle and base, which once sat majestically on a cherrywood plant stand in the hallway of my paternal grandmother's house, is still one of my most prized possessions. When my husband watched sports, I found other things to do. When I went to antique shops, he went elsewhere. We tolerated each other's interests, but never shared them. When we were both retired and our nest was empty, this gap between our interests began to trouble me. That's when I thought of the adage, "If you can't beat them, join them." In order to share my husband's interest in sports, I would have to learn about one particular sport. I started with baseball. While wrapping the garbage in the sports pages, I would read about the latest games and scores (since we were living in Kenosha, Wis., we subscribed to the Kenosha News and the Chicago Tribune) and began to compile charts on the various teams. I listed the roster of each team in its respective division and league. I noted the positions of each player, his performance history and any information about him that I could pick up. I put all this on index cards, which I slipped into my recipe file. It served as a quick and handy reference. And best of all, it was unobtrusive. One day, when my husband took a break from his yard work to catch a game, I decided to test my knowledge. I walked into the room, paused and tossed off a comment about how the player at bat was leading his team in RBIs. I walked out of the room, smiling smugly as I saw the startled look on my husband's face. That was only the beginning. Another day when he was watching a game, to his surprise and delight, I brought him a tray of refreshments. This time I plopped down next to him on the couch. A few minutes later, after a batter hit a long drive down the middle of the field and wound up at third base, I said to my husband, "I sure hope the next batter makes a sacrifice bunt and drives that run in." When he did, my flabbergasted husband looked more than impressed. As I began to sit with him, I can honestly say I was beginning to enjoy the game. I got caught up in the spirit of the competition. I also enjoyed the positive reactions from my husband. One evening when I told him I was going to an estate sale the next morning, he quietly announced, "I'm going with you." When I reminded him that he didn't like that sort of thing, he smiled and replied with a twinkle in his eyes, "You can teach me." At first I thought it was a token gesture, but as time went on, he seemed to like to accompany me on my antique hunts. He became especially interested when I decided to sell some of my accumulations. We even began to look for things together for the purpose of selling them. As we shared our interests, we grew closer and had a lot of fun. And when football season came around, I studied that, too. Together we reminisced about Vince Lombardi, the excitement of Bart Starr and Super Bowl games played in Green Bay's subzero weather. My interest in sports waned after my husband died, but this year it was rekindled. Once again I got caught up with football fever while cheering on the Bucaneers with daughter No. 3 and her husband in St. Petersburg, where I now spend my winters. I have even started to read the sports pages again. I am glad that the Bucs not only made it to the Super Bowl, but also brought home the Vince Lombardi trophy. -- LaVerne Hammond, who divides her time between Wisconsin and Florida, is an octogenarian at work on her memoirs. Write her in care of Seniority, St. Petersburg Times, P.O. Box 1121, St. Petersburg, FL 33731.
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From the Times Seniority pages |
