Paused for a coffee on my way to a morning medical appointment.
Got in line behind a guy in the middle of picking out a bunch of stuff.
“Gimme a couple of those, and one of those,” he said, pointing at the pile of yesterday’s pepperoni rolls they keep on the counter, and the breakfast burritos warming in a case next to the register.
Looked to me like he was being spontaneously thoughtful. Like it had just occurred to him to pick up some goodies to surprise whoever his peeps were.
I’m a sucker for spontaneous thoughtfulness.
After confirming that he meant ‘two’ for ‘a couple,’ the young person behind the counter reached for the pepperoni rolls.
After she picked one up, I heard her say softly to herself, “Oh, that one’s small,” then watched as she put the pepperoni roll she had in her hand back … and pull another out from the bottom of the pile.
The guy didn’t even see her do it.
Had already skooched to the side to wait for his stuff.
Struck me as both the smallest thing and the biggest thing.
When it was my turn in line, I told her I appreciated how she put the small one back.
She smiled.
“Yeah, I can’t help it,” she said. “I always think about what I’d want, you know?”
I wanted so much to say, “Me too!”
Because that’s how I think about things … though I don’t sell yesterday’s pepperoni rolls for a living.
“Even when I pick something out of the case, I try and look for the ‘good’ ones,” she added.
What I loved about how she put it is that I knew exactly what she meant, without having any idea exactly what she meant.
Just that it had nothing to do with whether anybody else noticed.
I don’t know why something so small that wasn’t meant to be seen moved me so much.
I mean … if they keep sellin’ like yesterday’s hot cakes, somebody might eventually get the pepperoni runt, … so does it even matter?
I dunno.
Maybe because it’s been my experience that how you do the small things is how you do the big things.
Or maybe I just need reminded sometimes that there are others out there trying to look for the good ones, too.
Ran into a friend at the coffee shop a couple weeks ago.
At the end of our brief chat, he invited me to a men’s Bible study he leads on Sunday mornings.
Said they’d be starting Second Timothy first of the month.
Even though it’s been awhile since I stepped foot in church, I said yes.
My friend is good light.
So, this morning I found myself gathered around a table with seven other guys.
My friend began by giving some context around Paul’s second letter to his friend Timothy.
Asked if we had any questions before diving us deeper.
I had one.
I asked if it was known whether Paul had any specific expectation, when writing to his friend, that Timothy might share the letter?
Or, did Paul intended his letter ‘only’ for Timothy?
My friend said he didn’t really know. Asked the rest of the group.
They weren’t sure, either.
Wow, I said out loud.
Suddenly found myself deeply moved.
By the humble act of a person who knew they didn’t have much time left, writing a letter of encouragement — from prison, no less — to someone he loved dearly.
No expectations of shares or likes.
Pretty remarkable when you think about it, I said aloud.
Which part, specifically? A voice at the table asked.
I mean … the fact of us reading a letter from almost two thousand years ago … written halfway across the world from the church basement where we were gathering … that was aimed at encouraging a single person.
Just, you know, the miracle of that.
Prompted the person to my right to mention that recently he helped get a car started over at the local college for a student who had broken down. Said that afterwards, she sent him just the most wonderful letter. How it moved him so much that he took a photo of the card to share it with some folks he knew.
He quoted a couple lines from it that were still on his heart, so that it could be on our hearts, too.
I told him that he made me grateful I asked the question … for the gift of him sharing the story of his letter.
Ten minutes into a Bible study about a book we hadn’t even cracked open yet … and already a sermon on the power of encouraging one another in trying times.
Anemochory.
That’s what nature calls it.
The dispersal of seeds by the wind.
“For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God.”
That’s what Paul calls it.
“We can’t change anything, but we can influence everything.”
That’s what the social scientist Robert Cialdini calls it.
Paul could not change the circumstances of his imprisonment. Of his impending death.
But he could send a letter encouraging his friend.
Regardless of our circumstances, we have agency over how we respond.
Of the energy we put into the world.
Paul’s letter to Timothy encourages us — to remember that encouragement is always an option.
Sitting around a table in a church basement grateful for asking questions, I am reminded that by encouraging one, others might be encouraged, too.
Disclaiming that I’m operating sans coffee this morning (boil water advisory in Washington County, which is so on-brand for a week and a world that could use some disinfecting), so please forgive any typos and dissents into incoherent, rambling despair ….
Broke my broken heart this week to read that Bezos eliminated the sports department at the Washington Post.
Poof.
As a former second-rate sports writer who knew enough to know what good sports writing looked like, knew enough to know his Murrays from his Boswells from his Angells from his Alboms from his Colliers from his Jenkins, knew enough to know that fields of play give professionals and teenagers the same Shakespearean stage to live out most of life’s tragedies and comedies, sometimes fairly, sometimes unfairly, but always truly, and that in the hands of the right deadline saint, the record could show as much, who knew enough to clip, underline, asterisk, and scribble down golden turns of phrases like collecting seashells for keeping hoping some of it might rub off, who knew enough to know that when he read Roger Kahn’s Boys of Summer that one summer that good sports writers were just good writers who happened to write sports, who knew enough to know that the local versions of those deadline saints who I got to watch and read up close were (and are) just as great, and even greater for shining and reflecting their good light without big spotlights, who knew enough to inhale the scent of a new edition like bread come midnight fresh off the the press before proofing it for the later editions, who knew enough to know that the smudge on your fingertips after reading was what made for a sacred act, who knew enough to know that tomorrow those pages would be lucky to line bird cages before being tossed in the trash so don’t get too full of yourself, who knew enough to know that it was one thing to hit it out of the print park once, but could you do it again tomorrow? And what about the next day? Who knew enough to know that love and commitment are proven only in the act of showing up again and again and playing hurt to stare down a blank page and a deadline, who knew enough to know that to love something with your whole heart is to miss it with whatever’s left of your whole heart when it’s gone, who knew enough to know that when his mid-50s self stumbled into that Waynesburg coffee shop last summer and saw they had a take-one-leave-one book shelf, he reached for the cover-stained, out-of-print edition of Sports illustrated Great Baseball Writing like he was rescuing it from a burning building …
… which he was.
Who knows enough to know that it would be hypocritical this morning to ask if he knows anyone who subscribes to the Atlantic and would they mind sending him a PDF of Sally (who did it as well as any ever did) Jenkins’ elegy, “You Can’t Kill Swagger” published a couple days ago … and that, in the asking lies the blood, like ink stains on my hands for not wanting to scale the paywall for a whole damn subscription.
While scrolling my Monday in-box last week, I was gifted language for something I have felt but never had words for.
When I stumble across such treasure, I try and make a point to write the word down in my journal.
I think of it like picking up seashells along a beach.
The word came courtesy of Creative Mornings, whose January theme came courtesy of their Tehran chapter.
I’ve copied their explanation here. Don’t think they’d mind.
کورسو or Koorsoo (pronounced Koor·Soo) is a Farsi word meaning a glimmer of hope.
“In our darkest hours, when everything seems to have dimmed, sometimes a light remains—not bright, not certain, but real. That is Koorsoo—a faint glimmer of hope that dares to survive. Koorsoo is not about triumph or clarity; it is about the fragile yet unwavering light that keeps us going. A glance, a memory, a word—small things that prevent collapse. It represents the quiet resilience of those who continue in spite of the weight, who believe without guarantee. In a world that often normalizes despair, Koorsoo is a rebellion—soft, but profound. It reminds us: even the smallest spark matters.”
My Monday morning — by which I mean my January — needed that reminder …
… almost but not quite as much as I needed caffeine driving up Main Street Thursday morning before work.
Anymore, I find my days need some back-up … which is among the reasons I collect seashells … metaphorically keep them in my pockets … so I can run my hands over their contour to remember, to remind myself.
Sometimes when I get to the small coffee shop when it opens, the sun’s still low enough in the sky to bathe the interior bright.
After giving my eyes a couple seconds to adjust, I noticed their humble logo reflected on an interior wall, crisp as a projection.
A fragile yet unwavering light.
I asked Fiona if they knew when they built the place that the sun would reflect like that, or if that was just a happy accident.
She wasn’t sure, but said it’s her favorite thing.
If we only knew how our light reflects sometimes.
After paying for my double cortado to go, I handed her a little extra cash for a pay-it-forward.
Spoke aloud the names aloud of a handful of humans who had recently reserved some kind thoughts in their day for me.
If we only knew how our light reflects sometimes.
Sitting here with my Sunday morning … a new month turned over … still needing reminders … still collecting sea shells … still remembering the importance of sharing our koorsoo with the world around us.
Left the house yesterday morning to meet my sister for coffee.
There are few more lovely reasons to leave the house on a Saturday morning.
Figured I’d swing by the post office first to pick up some stamps.
Planned to write my daughter her weekly postcard after having coffee with my big sister.
No line when I got inside.
Saw Maria standing behind the counter … which made me smile.
Maria’s worked at the post office for 28 years, if I remember correctly.
She told me last time I picked up a lasagna from her.
Not at the post office.
At her tender restaurant A la Maria’s, on LeMoyne, where she spends her weekday evenings … lovingly making her Mom’s old Italian recipes.
Maria’s place holds a special place in my heart.
When Karry and I got married and moved into the World’s Tiniest Apartment in East Washington, Maria’s mother ran a restaurant out of the basement of her home a couple blocks from us.
In our early Kraft-Mac-and-Cheese-Can-of-Peas-for-Dinner days, Paesano’s was our one monthly splurge.
Saturday night.
If the weather was nice we’d walk.
It was BYOB so we made a ritual of picking up a $10 bottle of wine.
Made sure we were in our seats by 7 o’clock, so we could watch X-Files re-runs on the big TV that hung in the dining area …
… while slow savoring food made with love from an Italian mother’s kitchen.
We’d take our time walking our full bellies back home — the next day’s leftover lunch in my left hand, Karry’s hand in my right.
Everything my Saturday night could ever want back then.
Maria’s lasagna is perfection.
Architectural is the best way to describe it.
Sharp corners. Rectilinear. Towering.
Don’t know how she does it.
Every lasagna we’ve ever made at home comes out of the pan (deliciously) gloopy.
Maria’s could serve as a tornado shelter.
Comes with about a 1/2 inch of standing red sauce pooling in the bottom of the to go container.
Every time I get home and crack open the styrofoam box, Pavarotti sings ‘La donna è mobile’ in my head.
Comes with two thin slices of Italian bread, essential sponges for sopping up every last drop from the plate when you’ve sadly run out of lasagna.
When I put my sopped-clean-post-lasagna plate in the dish washer, the other dishes are like, “I think you meant to put this back in the cabinet.”
So it should come as no surprise how it made me smile to see Maria behind the counter at the post office yesterday morning.
“Miss Maria,” I greeted.
“Mr. Riddell.”
“Postcard stamps?” I asked.
“Cleaned out. Election folks bought ‘em all up.”
“Awwww. Really?”
Asked her when they might get more in. She said they’re on order, from Kansas.
“They send them regular mail … so, who knows?”
Coming from a post office person, the “Who knows?” struck me as funny.
She said I could try the McMurray store. They have everything there.
I thanked her for letting me know, and exhaled defeatedly, as I didn’t have the time nor inclination for a special trip.
Was just about to say out loud that my visit wasn’t in vain, though, since I got to see her …
… when Maria interjected.
“Otherwise, you’d have to go two busses and some grapes.”
“Uh …. I’m sorry, what?”
“To make up the 61 cents,” she said.
Pre-caffeinated, I wasn’t following at all.
She pulls out her drawer, takes out a couple packs of stamps.
Starts to do math.
Explains the busses are 28 cents …
“So two of those …. plus a five cent stamp,” she says, holding up a pack of grape stamps.
“So you’d need a lot of stamps,” she chuckled.
“Wait …,” I said. “Postcard stamps are 61 cents?”
“Yep. Regular stamps are 78 cents, post cards are 61.”
I had no idea.
In my mind I thought postcard stamps were like 19 cents.
Sixty-one cents … for such little real estate.
I felt dumb … for having hundreds of post cards at home.
She started to put the booklets back in her drawer, when I interjected.
“I’ll take the busses and grapes,” I said.
“Oh, you want to do that?” she asked.
“Just to get me through today,” I said.
What I meant was that I’d just take a booklet of each as an interim solution.
“Oh, so you just want enough for one?” she asked.
I didn’t think you could do that.
I smiled at the smile on her face as I watched her tearing off a postcard’s worth of individual stamps from their booklets.
“I guess I’m going to have to write smaller,” I said out loud.
She broke apart the three I needed, laid them loose on the counter.
Then an idea popped into her head.
“Here’s what you do ….”
I watched her pick up a bus, peel it off, and carefully lay it across the other bus.
Wasn’t sure what she was doing … maybe just consolidating onto one piece rather than sending me out with three loose stamps?
Then she peeled the grape and surgically laid it across the second bus.
“There …. That’s what you do,” she said.
Proudly.
“Leaves you more room to write,” she said.
Oh.
“So you can lay them across each other like that on the post card?” I asked.
“Yep,” she said. “Only the ‘USA’ needs to be showing.”
And I giggled out loud … like a five-year-old who’d just seen an adult perform magic.
You should see what she does with a lasagna, I’m tellin’ ya.
In the town where I live, there’s a person who will not only let a clueless, pre-caffeinated little brother cobble together a postcard’s worth of stamps … but will take the time to bunch ‘em as tight as the law allows … so he has as much room as possible to write to his daughter about how much he misses her.
__
And after just the loveliest visit with my big sister …
… I took out my favorite pen …
… and the postcard I’d plucked special from my massive, impractical inventory …
… took my time writing small and neat …
… doing my best to make every word count …
… with all the reverence I could muster …
… as I imagined a mother might …
… writing down her favorite recipes for posterity.
I don’t remember if it fell across a couple years, or just one.
Don’t remember exactly how old we were. Early 20’s I think.
Don’t remember how often, or how many instances of it there were.
I just know that when Bill would drop Taco Night on the calendar …
… some of us would fast like it was Ramadan.
Mrs. Sochko makin’ tacos.
I remember the first time I attended … popping into the kitchen to say hello and thank you, and noticing she was pan frying the tortillas.
In our house we just opened the box and took the shells out of the plastic bag.
I remember thinking, “What is this sorcery?”
I can’t even remember who all would show up.
Just that there was always a table-full: Bill, his older brother Danny, and Mr. Sochko in their assigned seats, and the rest of us filling in the others.
Looking back I can’t fathom the amount of provisions she must’ve secured in advance.
I mean, the Sochko men and a table full of post-teenage boys.
I don’t remember her ever cutting us off.
If we were still eating, she’d keep making.
The tacos were just the best.
Mortals like me would fill ourselves full and tap out after seven or eight.
Matt was usually good for a couple more.
Bill, Danny and John?
In another league.
I remember one night in particular.
Somewhere north of double digits Bill called it quits.
Danny and John, though, kept goin’.
Defending home court I think Danny took it as a point of pride.
John, skinny as a rail, was simply enjoying himself.
I think Danny tapped out around 14 or so.
Meanwhile John just kept going … and going.
I don’t remember how high he climbed that night.
The number in my head is jumbled, like the way the older boys at Areford playground would keep track of their home runs back in a day.
I only know that John’s performance that night cemented his Taco Night legacy for all time.
__
For the record, Taco Night was one of two truly epic happenings hosted at the Sochko residence.
The other: Trivial Pursuit.
With Mr. Sochko.
While all of us enjoyed hanging out with each other, Mr. Sochko was the main attraction whenever we played. Big B we called him (he was a Bill, too).
Though it’s been more than 30 years, mention “TP with Big B,” to any of us post-teenagers and watch the smiles conquer our faces.
It wasn’t just that Mr. Sochko was the wisest person any of us knew.
Oh my gosh he knew so much.
It was how he delighted in knowledge.
The best part of our games was when he’d expound on the answers. I can still picture him peering over his glasses and smiling as he’d elucidate on a topic.
His was the kind of smile that made you lean in as you listened.
The kindest of smiles.
And we were as ravenous for Big B’s wisdom as we were for Mrs. Sochko’s tacos.
Big B kicked our asses pretty much every time.
I mean, he was a wizened citizen of the world playing with boys who didn’t yet know all they didn’t know.
But as I recall his record wasn’t undefeated.
What made that more special was that Mr. Sochko delighted as much in seeing one of us win (for the record, I’m not sure I ever won). In his congratulations he’d share the same generous smile as when he was sharing wisdom.
There’s a wisdom in that, too, now that I think about it.
To win a game of Trivial Pursuit when Big B was at table? Not sure our neighborhood offered higher accomplishment.
For me the common thread between Taco and Trivial Pursuit nights was that, in those moments I knew enough to know that I was in the best company.
My friends.
Bill’s family.
I mean, the best company.
And that knowledge — that wisdom — is as alive and nourishing to me now as when we gathered around Bill’s dining room table.
I know some post-teenage boys — who now know what they don’t know — who would say the same.
And though Mr. and Mrs. Sochko aren’t with us anymore, in my heart it will always be a short walk to Connor Street … to lingering a couple seconds on the front porch before knocking, just to take in the scent of tortillas frying in the pan.
Where others might commission tattoos, I have … t-shirts.
I fall in love with too many things and am way too scrawny to commit to tattoos.
I can be pretty much summed up by and/or reduced to the Billy Collins’ poem, “Aimless Love.”
“But my heart is always propped up in a field on its tripod, ready for the next arrow.”
Much to the chagrin of my wife (and my closet), I find t-shirts inexhaustible objects for my affections.
While shopping local a couple months ago, I stumbled upon the most wonderful creation, whose artist happened to choose a t-shirt for their canvas.
The above captures Forbes Field’s manual scoreboard the moment right before Bill Mazeroski cemented his baseball legacy on Oct. 13, 1960 — the second before his Game7-World-Series-winning home run off the Yankees’ Ralph Terry in the bottom of the ninth inning.
For me it was love at first sight.
So I was bummed when, the day after I ordered, I got an email from Wild Card in Lawrenceville, informing me they were out of larges … and asking me if I’d be interested in a medium instead.
But then I noticed a second email from Wild Card in my in-box. From the same person. Mentioning that if I wanted to try the medium, she’d send me a self-addressed return envelope in the slim (ha) chance it didn’t fit.
Who does that? Wild Card in Lawrenceville does.
Turns out, the medium suited me as kindly as Ralph Terry’s high fastball did Maz.
First time I wore it, I thought of a kindred spirit who would appreciate it.
Texted a pic of my proud torso to my friend Jeff.
His reply reeked of pure Pittsburgh serendipity.
Get this: turns out I actually know the person who designed the shirt.
Not only that, it was Jeff who introduced us a few years ago.
How’s that for a confluence?
Jeff shot me the number of his good friend, Nick, who I texted immediately, informing him of the wellspring of exponential Pittsburgh joy presently emanating from my torso.
“Ha … I think that’s my favorite, too,” Nick replied all the way from LA, where he now lives with his acclaimed-author-and-TV-writing- wife and family.
He summed up the inspiration for the design so perfectly and profoundly.
“Next pitch changes everything.”
Wow.
__
I’ve been walking around with Nick’s words in my pocket ever since our serendipitous exchange.
They keep grabbing me by my collar and shaking me awake.
We are all always only a pitch away from everything changing.
For the better … if you happened to be wearin’ black and gold on Oct. 13, 1960.
Or for worse, if you were wearin’ pinstripes.
Our existence is nothing but precious and fragile.
Yet always pregnant with possibility.
Which makes the choice of putting good into the world — even in something as temporal as a t-shirt — a sacred act.
As sacred as any kindness requiring intention … a self-addressed return envelope just in case, as an example.
If it wasn’t for the kind gesture of the person at Wild Card, I may not have ordered the shirt, and wouldn’t have thought of Jeff, wouldn’t have learned that I knew the designer, would never have sent Nick my gratitude, and would have gone a lifetime missing out on the golden wisdom he drew from Mazeroski’s heroic act.
Our tiniest gestures can be oxygen for campfires … that remind us that we’re connected in ways we can’t even imagine.
Letters for Maggie 