sports/nostalgia
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Farewell to the Aud
I wasn't prepared for what happened. I was back in town on business, driving around the HSBC, and there it was, the old Aud, in its current stripped down condition. I drove around to the far side ((east) the side visible from the 190, parked, within steps of the lot where I used to park for Braves games, and walked up to the security fence. It (the fence) was generously close to the old relic, affording me an intimate view of the cathedral where I once worshiped the Braves-gods, the almost holy trinity of McAdoo, Smith, and DiGregorio, and the almost as holy McM's and Gar Heard, along with the old testament prophets Hazard, Bryant, Hummer, May, Kaufman, and the rest.
I was staring right into a gaping hole almost as wide as the side of the builing, with the eastern third of seating sections in dust and rubble. It looked like a bomb-site. It was a desecration. It was more than I could bear.
I paused, stared, soaked it all in, conjured up memories-- what memories I could of the brief but brazen Braves, the building rocking as they pulled ahead of the Celts or Knicks in one of their legendary playoff series, picturing the big blue scoreboard showing the clock almost gone, the score tied, or one down, or one up, saw celebrants dancing, stomping, clapping, raising fists in each of those seats-- or the obvious metered spaces where seats once stood-- and then I walked away, depressed, sad, feeling empty.
I rounded the corner and there was the HSBC looming again, large, beautiful, modern. So why was I so sorry to see this old place that has been so neglected and allowed to decay for so many years when we have such a beautiful replacement?
It's the Braves. The Aud is our last physical connection to the Braves. The Sabres moved with their memories to the HSBC. The Braves moved long before the move. The Aud was their only home, our only physical connection to them. And now, it's worse than gone, in its in between gutted and ravaged state, half ruins, half still a shadow of its once glorious self.
I'm not sure I'm glad I stopped to gape. Now I'm stuck with that memory in my brain. It's like the person who chooses not to go to the morgue to identify the body of a loved one who has been mangled in a terrible accident, the family that chooses to keep the casket closed when the dead relative had been brutally attacked. "Let me remember him or her the way s/he was, not the way s/he died," they would say. And wisely so. I wish I'd given myself the same advice.
-jwh-