‘Myths’ Capture Inspiration

We Need To Move Forward

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
On the sixth day, he created man and woman. Tempted by a serpent in the Garden of Eden established for their happiness, they ate fruit from the Tree of Life, gaining the knowledge of good and evil. A perfect world was no more. And so mankind was banished from the Garden of Eden, for Adam – and these days, Eve – to earn a living from the sweat of his or her brow. Certainly, it’s the guiding story of Western Civilization, and there are versions of it in non-Western religions, too. Even today, many believe the Garden was an actual place, in modern-day Iraq between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Even those who don’t believe in Eden’s earthly reality recognize that sin exists – lust, greed, anger, pride and the rest – and embrace the hope of salvation, terrestrial or otherwise, for a return to Eden. The creation story resonates with everyone because it’s true, even if Eden isn’t.
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This is brought to mind while researching this edition’s front-page article on “Baseball’s Mayor,” and running across how Jeff Katz described Abner Doubleday’s invention of baseball to the New York Times last year: “It’s an origin story that’s a myth. But we’re such a perfect setting for that myth. Baseball wasn’t invented here. But it should have been.” That Doubleday took a branch from the Tree of Baseball and, in a pasture behind today’s Key Bank building in downtown Cooperstown, created the National Pastime has been shown to be factually without basis. (The story’s originator, Abner Graves, died in an insane asylum.) But it’s nonetheless true that baseball represented – and represents – a national aspiration, a hope that challenges, if conquered through hard work and discipline, would bring salvation in the form of happiness and success. Cooperstown, alongside James Fenimore Cooper’s unspoiled Glimmerglass (slightly less so today), was the American Eden, repository of small-town values, of dear hearts and friendly people, from which humankind goes forth to Horatio-Alger-like heights. That Doubleday, who later fired the first shot at Fort Sumter in defense of the Union and rose to a generalship during the Civil War, probably never visited Cooperstown matters not at all. You can see why the Mills Commission embraced Abner Graves’ recollections and in 1907 declared today’s Doubleday Field the place where baseball was invented. It was a perfect setting then. And it’s still pretty good today, as anyone can see in the faces of tens of thousands of fans who will visit this weekend, many for the first time. Keepers of the myth kept the flame alive for decades before the literalists debunked it. But, in reality, the National Pastime we revere today emerged, not from some Medieval Polish game of rounders, but from a concept much like the Cooperstown of imagination.
Myths live, because we need them to.
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In recent days, we’ve seen the fall from grace play out in Otsego County’s only city, Oneonta, where two years ago the promise of salvation – a shining city in the Oyaron Hill vicinity – seemed a possibility in declining Upstate New York. A savior – in the unlikely figure of a 60-something retired college president turned mayor – was going to revive its commercial energy, to reenergize its downtown and neighborhoods, to keep its young from heading east of Eden (and attract new ones), and to reinvent the City of the Hills as a hub of arts and knowledge. Mayor Dick Miller abruptly left the scene last October, and thorns and thistles quickly emerged. The acrimony evident as a Common Council cabal moved to fire a second city manager in 14 months was saddening indeed, evident in how quickly things can fall apart. But four of the eight Council members are leaving office at year’s end. A fifth is facing a challenge in the November elections. There may be hope again for municipal salvation. And a sensible individual is, so far, unopposed for mayor. (Independent petitions may be filed until Aug. 7.) That individual, Gary Herzig, who has spent a career helping the less fortunate through the Job Corps and OFO, expressed disappointment at a Common Council in tumult. But, he added, “It’s time to look forward. We have a strong slate of candidates. We have capable people in City Hall. Oneonta is going to be in good hands.” The Miller Myth lives, as do the Doubleday and Creation ones. And we can embrace them as we strive toward our personal Edens.