Cherishing memories of Dad

Years ago – too many to count – my father, Doug Brown, gave me a small, black, transistor radio.

The radio stopped working this summer, but it still holds a special place in my heart because Dad gave it to me.

When my father died July 28, I found it difficult to listen to Red Sox baseball on the radio. I thought it was ironic that his special gift to me broke just before he died.

In my life, there was always a game on the radio.

My father’s brother Glenn – my uncle, of course – and my grandmother used to tell me that the very first sports game I ever heard was a radio broadcast of professional football.

Mixed with the traditional sounds of growing up was the background music of Red Sox baseball.

After church on Sunday, the family always took a trip somewhere. Often, especially in the summertime, the conversation in the car centered around what was transpiring in the game.

I was a lucky kid because I started acquiring the assorted nuances of baseball at a very early age.

For the record: I was never a great player. In my family, my uncle was the star athlete. An outstanding football and baseball player at South Portland High School, Glenn spent a lot of time with me when we lived in the southern part of the state.

But it was Dad and all those games on the radio that I’ll remember most.

It was a common occurrence in our house, even with the advent of television, to have the radio blasting during Sox games and the volume turned down on the TV.

When I was a small boy, I fell asleep countless times to the sounds of baseball on the radio.

I remember when Dad gave me that radio how thrilled I was to be able to tuck it under my pillow and listen to the ballgames.

I was especially excited when I heard a quiet knock on my bedroom door, followed by a whisper, “What’s the score, son?”

Some nights, Dad would sit on the edge of the bed and listen to the game with me. When there was a home run or a great play, he’d clap his big hands together then say, “Shhh – your mother will shoot me if she thinks I woke you up!”

Yes, there was always a game on the radio.

When we moved to Branch Lake in Ellsworth in the summer, baseball was a big part of our vacation life. Falling asleep to the sounds of waves crashing on the beach and Curt Gowdy or Ned Martin’s voice mixing with the swooshing, splashing noise was heaven for a young boy.

The last year of my father’s life was difficult for a man who had been on the go for the previous 75 years.

Through the regimen of hospitalization and treatments for cancer, the constants in my father’s life were Red Sox conversations and, of course, all the baseball games.

My father’s personal care attendant, Louie Murray of Freedom, soon found out over the last year that attending to medical duties was one thing but making sure all was well with the reception on the radio was another thing entirely.

If you spoke with Dad or visited with him, you might hear: “Louie, what’s the score now?”

Louie is a fine fellow, and he took it all in stride. Like the rest of the family – and he really became a part of our family – ballgames became a priority. I think Dad made a Sox fan out of him.

Rest in peace, Dad. We’ll keep the games on for you, and on summer nights, they’ll take us back to the wonderful times we spent together.

NEWS columnist Ron Brown, a retired high school basketball coach, can be reached at bdnsports@bangordailynews.net