Famous Last Words

• I’ll never get a PDA. I can barely decipher my own handwriting. No little box is going to be able to read it.
• Anyway, I refuse to learn a new alphabet just to please some overpriced piece of technology.
• Anyway, I would drop it, or lose it.
• Anyway, I love paper and pens.
• Anyway, I don’t need one. My Daytimer may be big and bulky, but it contains everything I need. Pretty much. Usually. If I carry a notebook, too, and a couple of paperbacks to read.
• Anyway, I can remember everything I need to do.
• Anyway, I have the laptop.

Then Doreen told me I could download books to a PDA. There are a lot of wonderful books now out of copyright, and I could keep Saki’s Chronicles of Clovis in my pocket. Hmmmm.

Then I started using the Palm software on my laptop as an organizing tool, and I loved it. I could remember to return library books on time! I could track what I was doing! Maybe an organizer was a good idea.

Then I discovered that I could get a keyboard and just type stuff into it. So I started keeping an eye on eBay and Craigslist. Eventually I found what I wanted: a Palm m500 with all the extras, going really cheap. (Partly because it’s black-and-white, and everyone seems to want color on their PDA.) It came complete with two cradles, a synching cable, a metal case, a thumb keyboard, a near-full-size keyboard that folds into its own leather case, several other unopened gadgets, and the m500 its ownself: tiny yet powerful. I named her Alyx, after the short but kick-ass Joanna Russ character.

Then I noticed it didn’t have any styli. I went out to Staples and, for a moderate percentage of what I got the whole thing for, I bought some styli.

What kind of seller was this, I asked myself. Clearly someone who buys all the latest high-tech toys with all the gadgets, but doesn’t necessarily use it. Plenty of this stuff was still in its virginal blisterpak.

Is he too cheap or simply too distracted to include the styli? Or maybe passive-aggressive. “She’s getting all this stuff for so little money. Let her buy her own damn stylus. She can have everything but my rod.”

Now I had the Palm. I wanted to synch it to the laptop. I had not even plugged in the cradle yet. I tried to start Palm Desktop to find out what I needed to do. No dice. I’m getting a #-50 error message.

I messed with extensions and a dozen other issues. Nada.

I deleted and reinstalled. Still nothing.

I downloaded an older version. Nope.

I cursed with vigor and imagination. I’d already set up everything on the laptop the way I like it. Now it was all gone.

Ah, hell. I decided I should just run it off Michele’s PC. The interface on the PC is not nearly as good as on the Mac, but I can live with that.

Since then I’ve been stuffing goodies into it. The contents of my Yahoo address book. The software to run the two keyboards. Endless lists. Birthdays for most of my family. Social engagements for the next few weeks. Ebooks and reader software. The morning and evening prayers for this month from the Book of Common Prayer.

I am also considering ways to decorate the aluminum case. Stickers, model paint, decoupage. . . . I want to create something unique.

The End of Baseball

From the day pitchers and catchers report to training camp, my cell phone plays “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” It has now been set to play the “Ode to Joy.”

The Dying Cubs Fan’s Last Request

Do they still play the blues in Chicago?

By the shores of old Lake Michigan

Where the “hawk wind” blows so cold

An old Cub fan lay dying

In his midnight hour that tolled

Round his bed, his friends had all gathered

They knew his time was short

And on his head they put this bright blue cap

From his all-time favorite sport

He told them, It’s late and it’s getting dark in here

And I know its time to go

But before I leave the line-up

Boys, there’s just one thing I’d like to know

Do they still play the blues in Chicago

When baseball season rolls around

When the snow melts away,

Do the Cubbies still play

In their ivy covered burial ground

When I was a boy they were my pride and joy

But now they only bring fatigue

To the home of the brave

The land of the free

And the doormat of the National League

Told his friends “You know the law of averages says:

Anything will happen that can.”

That’s what it says.

“But the last time the Cubs won a National League pennant

Was the year we dropped the bomb on Japan”

The Cubs made me a criminal

Sent me down a wayward path

They stole my youth from me

(that’s the truth)

I’d forsake my teachers

To go sit in the bleachers

In flagrant truancy

and then one thing led to another

and soon I’d discovered alcohol, gambling, dope

football, hockey, lacrosse, tennis

But what do you expect,

When you raise up a young boy’s hopes

And then just crush ‘em like so many paper beer cups.

Year after year after year

after year, after year, after year, after year, after year

‘Til those hopes are just so much popcorn

for the pigeons beneath the ‘EL’ tracks to eat

He said “You know I’ll never see Wrigley Field, anymore

before my eternal rest

So if you have your pencils and your score cards ready,

and I’ll read you my last request

He said, “Give me a double header funeral in Wrigley Field

On some sunny weekend day (no lights)

Have the organ play the National Anthem

and then a little “na, na, na, na, hey hey, hey, Goodbye”

Make six bullpen pitchers, carry my coffin

and six ground keepers clear my path

Have the umpires bark me out at every base

In all their holy wrath

Its a beautiful day for a funeral, Hey Ernie lets play two!

Somebody go get Jack Brickhouse to come back,

and conduct just one more interview

Have the Cubbies run right out into the middle of the field,

Have Keith Moreland drop a routine fly

Give everybody two bags of peanuts and a frosty malt

And I’ll be ready to die

Build a big fire on home plate out of your Louisville Sluggers baseball bats,

And toss my coffin in

Let my ashes blow in a beautiful snow

From the prevailing 30-mile-an-hour southwest wind

When my last remains go flying over the left field wall

Will bid the bleacher bums adieu

And I will come to my final resting place, out on Waveland Avenue

The dying man’s friends told him to cut it out

They said stop it that’s an awful shame

He whispered, “Don’t cry, we’ll meet by and by near the Heavenly Hall of Fame.”

He said, “I’ve got season’s tickets to watch the Angels now,

So it’s just what I’m going to do

He said, “but you the living, you’re stuck here with the Cubs,

So its me that feels sorry for you!”

And he said, “Ahh play, play that lonesome losers’ tune,

That’s the one I like the best

And he closed his eyes, and slipped away

What we got is the Dying Cub Fan’s Last Request

And here it is

Do they still play the blues in Chicago

When baseball season rolls around

When the snow melts away,

Do the Cubbies still play

In their ivy covered burial ground

When I was a boy they were my pride and joy

But now they only bring fatigue

To the home of the brave

The land of the free

And the doormat of the National League.

– Steve Goodman

I love Steve Goodman — a brilliant musician who was in Hillary Rodham Clinton’s graduating class. He wrote “City of New Orleans” (one of the greatest train songs ever) as well as many other wonderful, funny, and touching songs. And God help him, he was a Cubs fan.

He died young of leukemia. He is missed.