Every Town Has Own “Moonlight”

by Woody

FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM: @woodywoodburn

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Every Town Has Its

Own “Moonlight”

As long as “Shoeless” Joe Jackson and the other ballplayers in the movie “Field of Dreams” stay on the magical baseball diamond in an Iowa cornfield, they remain forever young.

We learn this when young outfielder “Moonlight” Graham steps across the first-base foul line and becomes his elderly self as Dr. Archibald Graham, giving up immortality in order to save Ray Kinsella’s young daughter from choking.

In response to my column last week, reader Lindsay Nielson shared a humorous anecdote about feeling like he had crossed the foul line in the opposite direction during his annual physical with Dr. Geoff Loman.

“I told him, ‘Doc, I think I am immortal,’ ” Nielson wrote in an email. “ ‘Really? Why is that?’ came his response.

Dr. Archibald “Moonlight” Graham played by Burt Lancaster in “Field of Dreams.”

“I rattled off all the things I had been through – two heart attacks; a fall that resulted in three screws to hold my hip together and a titanium bar in my femur; a few stent implants; back surgery that resulted in eight screws in my spine; and my second home in Palm Springs had burned to the ground, etc.

“Dr. Loman said, ‘Wow, Lindsay, that is something. But, I went to a pretty good medical school and it is my opinion that you probably aren’t immortal.’ ”

As the mortal Dr. Graham, Burt Lancaster’s character sagely says of his disappointing one-game career in the Big Leagues without an at-bat: “If I’d only gotten to be a doctor for five minutes – now that would have been a tragedy.”

Rick Throckmorton feels it would have been a tragedy had his own family doctor not had a long medical career, writing: “Your column brought back old memories of Dr. Albert Crites, who founded the Port Hueneme Belinda Hospital, later Adventist Hospital. I don’t know if he was a poet or not, but I remember him as surely being an angel or saint in disguise on earth.

“Dr. Crites treated my grandmother, who was a sad hypochondriac, and who visited him almost daily with her alleged aches and pains. Once, I accompanied her while I was on a leave from the Army. I remember him saying, ‘Bessie, now you know there’s nothing wrong with you, but I have something that might help. It’s a wonder medicine.’ He would give her a vial of what I later learned were plain sugar pills, but Grandmom was always better after taking them!

“Dr. Crites once fixed my broken finger (before splinting it) by pulling it straight after telling me, ‘Ricky, this is gonna hurt a little!’ I was in the seventh grade and a fly ball had hit squarely on top of my ring finger and broke it to 90 degrees. It hurt like heck, but Dr Crites’ soothing words calmed the tears.

“Some years later, I was involved in a serious accident while in Hueneme High School and the ambulance took me to Adventist Hospital. I had not seen Dr. Crites since the broken-finger incident and there he was. He said again, ‘Ricky, looks like this is gonna to hurt a little’ as he treated my severe burns.

“Dr. Crites took care of my mom, too, as she had to have full hysterectomy; and my WWII veteran dad’s bad heart; and I was there with Dr. Crites when dad passed away early from a massive heart attack.

“In the movie ‘Field of Dreams’, James Earl Jones’ character Terence Mann says, ‘Every town has a Doctor Graham,’ ” Throckmorton concluded. “And every town has, or should have, a Doctor Crites.”

If not, now that would be a tragedy.

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Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram at @woodywoodburn. His books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

Check out my memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece” and my essay collection “Strawberries in Wintertime: Essays on Life, Love, and Laughter” …