Interview by Jason Dubow, essays editor
Questions: Willie, My Father, and Me
Boog City: Now that you are a man of a certain age, i.e. a lot of time has passed since the events you write about in the essay took place, how do you understand your father, and your relationships with him, differently?
Mitch Levenberg: The narrative is kind of merging a younger Mitch and older Mitch. The younger Mitch was willing to accept more from but understand less of his father. I understand now that my father could have been more tolerant, more understanding, of where I was coming from, a 12-year-old boy who wanted nothing more than his father’s approval. Was my father jealous of my hero worship of Willie? No doubt, but maybe young Mitch (I think back now) could have been more appreciative of his father’s feelings and insecurities. I do know, as time went by, I cared less and less whether my father liked baseball and Willie Mays.
BC: Memory can be complicated, for sure. Can you talk a little bit about the dynamics of actual, literal, historical truth. v remembered/narrative truth in this piece?
ML: Yes, in addition to narrative truth I always feel there’s an emotional truth or fuzzy truth whose details you may not remember exactly, but you do remember how it made you feel. Whether Willie actually hits a homerun in his last time at bat is important, perhaps, but not as important as the fact that my father has once again fallen asleep during Willie’s last time at bat. And, of course, the cigar is everything. It’s that literal truth, that memory, that inspired the story. It was a perfect illustration of who my father was. The homerun is wonderfully dramatic, and could have happened, but my father being asleep is what reinforces the sadness and poignancy of the story. What I remember, or how I remember feeling about it, is just as if not more important than what exactly happened.
JBCD: I know you are still a serious a baseball fan. How does baseball, players as heroes, etc. fit into your life now?
ML: I’m as big a baseball fan (still Mets) as ever, if not more. Now I take it a lot more seriously. A close game raises my blood pressure. A badly played game by the Mets makes me yell at my wife and dogs who are just innocent bystanders. I’m not sure why, but things haven’t changed much from 10-70. I do feel the game is being tampered with too much. Believe it or not I still have heroes, but I’d rather refer to them as favorite players.