So Close

Summer was always his busiest season, all the more so since taking on a business of his own. It seemed anything beyond a day trip to the beach was all but impossible for Dad. Summer meant time off from school, but never a real family vacation getaway. Except for one long weekend in 1964.

As kids, the World's Fair was a as close as we'd ever get to Disneyland, because in addition to their own building with the never ending musical loop of 'It's A Small World,' Disney animatronics permeated the park: Abe Lincoln at the Illinois pavillion, Various sketches at GE's rotating theater, and certainly at Ford, where you could ride your new model Mustang through scenes of cavemen!

To Mom, what started as a pilgrimage to the Vatican Pavillion to see the agony of Michaelangelo's "Pietà " morphed into the ecstacy of "Belgian waffles."

We developed a taste for "Heinz Blend" - a mixture of orange and lemon drink I have yet to duplicate in 45 years of trying, and that Sunday afternoon Dad noticed explosions of cheers that suggested someting huge was happening just beyond our ersatz 'Tomorrowland.'

So we followed the sound toward the Singer Bowl... supposedly the site of the fair's biggest events, only to find the noise was coming from outside... across the LIRR trainyard at Willett's Avenue... from Shea Stadium, new home to the Mets, and beyond the reach of our admission tickets for June 21st.

The next morning's papers told of how Jim Bunning had pitched a perfect game, the National League's first in 84 years. What we had heard was baseball history being made. We didn't actually see it... But on that Father's Day, as a family, we were in the neighborhood.