The Bookstore

The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore The Bookstore

WELCOME TO THE BOOKSTORE

LIFE LESSONS AND HOPES

A BOY GROWS UP IN BALTIMORE

Click to buy amazon.com/books and enter Life Lessons by Stephen Kirsch

The Day I Met Moses

Thousands of years ago lived a people in what today is called Siberia farming the land living in villages. Their communities thrived presenting opportunities for a good life. A world of contentment they knew that is until the land turned barren from approaching coldness forcing them to leave for lands in search of food and warm shelter.

It is doubtful they wanted to move leaving behind a land home for centuries, but they required the three basic needs of man: clothing, shelter, and food, and these had become threatened by the changing climate. No longer were they able to thrive in this land they once called home. They needed to move in search of food and shelter. Thus began the slow migration of these people into the western part of Siberia.

In time these people of Western Siberia crossed over into what is now called Alaska discovering salmon and other foods to eat with furry animals for clothing and food. In time they migrated southward into what is known today as North, Central and South America, lands of abundant food and an inviting climate.

They became the Indians of North America, the Incas of Peru, the Mayas and Aztecs of Mexico. The descendants of these people became those whom Christopher Columbus met upon his arrival in 1492 in what the Europeans called the new world.

Many of European descent living in the United States are here because their ancestors found their way to this country to worship as they pleased. They had been victimized for their beliefs in their homelands because their form of worship differed from the conventional, the favored. In America, the hope of no persecution gave them the vitality to leave their homes.

From England came those who initially sought refuge on the continent to worship. The persecution experienced in England followed them onto this continent, where persecution for their form of worship continued but at the hands of a different people. Upon stepping onto the cold shores of North America they became known as the Pilgrims.

Many came to America to avoid being drafted into an army to fight for an impersonal king or emperor. The risking of life and loss of many years away from family in wars to protect the king’s way of life, not their way of life, lacked appeal to many Germans, French and others on the continent. Many Germans fled their homeland for America to avoid being drafted into the army of Bismarck.

Others came fleeing the walls of the jail or the hang man’s rope. Many sought a new life because of the economic, political, and religious chaos from which they fled. Those of Irish descent arrived in the harbors of America for these reasons with the same being true for Italians, Poles and Jews.

Many came in pursuit of gold and riches. Others came to America because they were bored with their lives seeking adventure. Some came just to come.

Most of those who left the continent of Europe for America did so for the same reasons the people of Siberia moved west into Alaska and the Americas. They did not migrate out of a desire to leave the homes of their youth and the history of their people. But when faced with a life of extinction, regardless of the cause, the lure of the new world held promise.

Those who traveled across Siberia to Alaska came not out of desire but to avoid starvation. They came looking for food. For most of those from Europe, the forces of economic and political disruption with the losses of religious and personal liberties caused them to leave their homes for the new world. What laid behind them was as important a reason, perhaps more important, as what lay in front of them.

For the Europeans, within this appearance of involuntariness hid an element of voluntariness. There existed the element of a conscious decision. These people planned for the day of moving. When leaving their homes, a consciousness of where they were going existed.

The person fleeing the authorities in Ireland did not want, desire, or wish to come to America but he chose this decision because this way he could live another day. The young man fleeing wars would have rather stayed home but he came across the ocean to live another day.

Common to these people coming to America, from the man avoiding religious persecution to the man avoiding the hangman’s rope, was on the day they departed from their home for America they awoke knowing where they will be at the end of the day. They awoke in the morning, ate their breakfasts, packed their things, and said goodbye to their families, loved ones and friends. Perhaps even a hope lived deep in their souls that one day they will see their families again.

Doubt, uncertainty, and fear accompanied them on their long and dangerous journey, but hope accompanied them as well. That is hope of a better day containing the idea of freedom to live as they desired.

Common to all, they consciously embarked upon a journey undesirable and feared. This was true of the people from Siberia to the Irish man escaping the rope of the British, the famine of Ireland, to the people of Europe fleeing oppression, starvation, and war.

Others, in a land far away, started their days working and caring for loved ones, hunting for food in the forest to feed their families, collecting firewood or water from the stream for breakfast and ended up in America. A way of life, a good way of life, having been for centuries, ended in one day.

They joyfully started their day thinking of being home that night with their families not knowing it will end with them being chained to the belly of a slave ship heading for an unknown world painfully and fearfully doubting of seeing ever home and family. Being chained with hundreds of men and women, they did not understand the future of the auction block in the harbor of Annapolis in America.

Many of this far away land left their way of life sensing they will not see their loved ones again. They did not have the chance to say goodbye. Those left behind seeing them gone did not understand the leaving.

One morning there walked a father, a mother, a sister, a brother, a grandparent, but come evening the walk was no more. Unlike those from Siberia, Ireland, Poland and elsewhere, these people of the far away land did not possess the need, the desire, to leave in search of a place in which to live, a place to worship as they pleased, to survive to another day. They had their homes, the homes of their ancestors.

For the Irishman, as with many from the continent, they chose to flee the cruelty of his homeland. For the slave, he had no choice.

For those who started their day collecting firewood, ending the day chained to the belly of the slave ship, on the auction block in a land unknown, no element of voluntariness, not remotely, lived in their lives.

The families and loved ones of those leaving Europe had the knowledge of knowing where their loved ones had gone, what happened and why. As to the people chained to the belly of the slave ship, there were no final goodbyes, no final kisses, no hope of there ever being another day when they could see their families. No understanding existed in any degree of knowing the location of the father, the son, the daughter, the mother, suddenly gone, or even if they lived. Those left behind in the land far away looked up to the moon wondering if the one they loved looked up to the same moon.

For the immigrants of Europe, traveling across the Atlantic Ocean, fear did accompany them. But for these European immigrants at least they heard of this place called America with an idea of what laid ahead of them.

To the men and women chained to the bellies of the slave ships such knowledge even in its most rudimentary form did not exist. For them fear did not come along as a companion. Fear became their being, a fear internalized; a fear with no hope. For the Europeans, their fear possessed this thing called hope making it a fear unlike the fear of the man chained to the belly of the slave ship. For the immigrant from Europe, fear remained part of his life. For the slave it was his life.

Each, be slave or European, traveled the same ocean in vessels moved by the wind. This much they possessed in common.

Some of the Europeans came as first-class travelers enjoying the best existing at the time. Charles Dickens with his wife and children traveled from England to America in the year 1823 and wrote of his trip. Dickens described the trip with words describing misery. They slept in small rooms, consumed food, not fresh, living each day in boredom.

For Europeans who came to the ports of the American East coast to avoid the rope of the hangman, or to worship their God as they pleased, the trip did not measure up to the description of the first-class traveler described by Dickens. Many died. Many became sick after eating rotten and poisonous food. Most experienced harsh conditions. For many, certainty in the future did not exist.

To the slave in the belly of the ship the ocean presented as the same with its vastness, winds, and storms. Like their European brothers they prayed to their God. But the similarities ended there.

For the slave a view of the sea, the beauty of the rising and setting sun, the moon once admired with family and that special person, and the feel of the wind in his hair no longer did he possess. Worse still, hope of someday possessing these did not exist.

For the slave, the trip became long and rough with little food and what food there was became rotten and filled with worms. He laid in human waste and dirt with no fresh water if any water at all. The days in the belly of the slave ship became days where the only goal was to survive the day.

One thought, that is to live another day, consumed their thinking becoming the motivation in all they did. Many did not survive the trip and thrown over the side to be eaten by the fish. For many, the day started with the gathering of wood to cook the morning breakfast ended being fed to the fish of the ocean.

Upon arrival, the European faced uncertainty of where he may work or sleep that first night. To the man chained to the belly of the slave ship, upon his arrival in a land unknown to him, he stood on a block, often naked, in Annapolis to be sold to a well-dressed Christian man to do that of which he had no idea.

This story is not about one of those who made and survived this journey in the belly of the slave ship. It is of a future grandchild of one of those who went out in the morning to gather berries and collect wood for the breakfast fire to end on the auction block in the City of Annapolis. Sold to the white man to pick tobacco or cotton in Virginia, Carolina, or even worse sugar deep in the South.

His name was George.

FRANK ROBINSON

For 13 days in October 1962, the world faced annihilation. Prudence prevailed. The world survived.

The following year Dallas became more than just another city somewhere in Texas.

In 1964 the Republican Party nominated a man calling for repeal of the Civil Rights Act to reinstate segregation.

In 1965, President Johnson abandoned a promise sending thousands of troops to Vietnam.

Then came the assassination of Malcom X in Harlem.

1967 and 1968 saw cities across this country erupt from the sins of the white man no longer ignored.

In April of 1968 a man journeyed to Memphis to support sanitation workers. This man died by the bullet of a white man. The man killed, Martin Luther King.

Two months later, the little brother of a fallen president died by the bullet also by a white man. This man, Bobby Kennedy.

In 1964 and 1965, the Baltimore Orioles with players named Brooks Robinson, Jim Gentile, Gus Triandos and others most dear came close to winning the American League Pennant.

In the Spring of 1966 Brooks Robinson went to the then Friendship Airport to pick up a player transferred from Cincinnati. A reject they said he was.

The Cincinnati reject played right field and with his bat powered the Orioles to its first American League Pennant putting them in the 1966 World Series facing the supermen from Los Angeles. The LA Dodgers were known for their invincibility and pitchers, among them, Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale.

The Orioles had a man named Jim Palmer, but who was he? Whoever heard of him? There was Dave McNally, Wally Bunker, and Moe Drabowsky. More unknowns, all of them.

Without exception all the sports writers had the Orioles losing with many calling for the Dodgers to win 4 games to none.

In the first inning of game one with a man on base, the Cincinnati reject took a pitch from Don Drysdale sending the ball over the fence. The Orioles led 2-0.

The Orioles won game one, game two, and game three.

In game four the Cincinnati reject took another pitch from Don Drysdale sending the ball over the fence. The Orioles won game 4 and with it the World Series.

The Dodgers scored a total of two runs in the entire series, all in game one.

In game two pitched by that unknown pitcher named Jim Palmer, the Dodgers scored zero runs.

The Cincinnati reject has won Most Valuable Player in both the National and American Leagues. He hit a ball out of the old Memorial Stadium here in Baltimore, the only player to ever do this.

In his first year of eligibility, he was elected to baseball’s Hall of Fame.

In 2005 he became the first African American to manage a major league baseball team. That team being the Washington Nationals. At that time only Aaron, Ruth, Bonds and Mays had more home runs.

His name? Frank Robinson.

When he arrived in Baltimore, Frank Robinson became an instant leader to his teammates adored by the fans.

But he was not able to live in the same neighborhood as his instant friend, Brooks Robinson.

Not able to live in the neighborhood into which he hit the ball out of the park.

In 1966, two men ran for governor of Maryland. The Democrats nominated a candidate whose slogan was “Your Home Is Your Castle”. The Republicans nominated a man saying it is time for Brooks and Frank to be able to live together in the same neighborhood.

The Republican candidate won and the wall preventing Frank Robinson going home with his teammates and fans began to fall.

The Democratic candidate was George Mahoney. The Republican, Spiro Agnew, a future vice president.

In the middle of the madness of the 60s stood Memorial Stadium with its men whom we adored and who brought us together. Frank Robinson helped a people conflicted within and without. He helped give the people of Baltimore something to cheer for, a smile common to all, brought the many into the one, together.

For a few hours a few days each week, he helped our team give us a sense of pride in our city, and ourselves. Gave a hint of the vision presented by the man who spoke by the Sea of Galilee who said, “The rain falls upon all”.

In the beginning of the 60s the man who fell in Dallas said, “We all feel the warmth of the same sun, breathe the same air, have the same dreams for our children, we are all mortal”.

Baseball that year in 1966 led by the Cincinnati reject, a man who could not go home with Brooks, the Orioles gave life to these words.

In 1988, Frank Robinson managed the Orioles. The team lost its first 21 games. During these losses, a telephone call came for Frank Robinson.

The caller was President Reagan who called to say, “Hang in there. Do not give up, I know what it is like to lose”.

Mr. Robinson responded saying, “With all due respect Mr. President, you have no idea what it is like to lose 17 games in a row”.

I was 15 years old during the 1966 World Series. I remember getting on the Number 8 trolley line to reach the stadium. I did not have a ticket. I just wanted to be outside the Stadium.

I did not understand the history of the 60s, the history being made within the Stadium and without. But I sensed something great was happening.

I knew of two men named Robinson. One Brooks, the other Frank. What I did not understand was one could eat in my father’s restaurant, the other could not.

I did not know the color of Brooks or Frank.

From the President to the players to the fans, all were brought together by the pitching, hitting, catching, and throwing of a ball measuring 9 inches in diameter. A circle. No Beginning. No End. All in one.

Am I the only one who sees what I see?

Learn More

WELCOME TO THE BOOKSTORE

m

This website uses cookies.