Montcollector's 250th Post Short( Or Long) Story Contest - Last Page

Posted 05/07/2016 12:26 am

Mabel had just turned six in December of 1905 when her family moved from the coast of New Jersey to South Paulina Street in Chicago. Her father had taken a job earlier that summer and had sent for the family just before Christmas. She and her two older brothers moved into the second floor of a three level home with a small balcony that looked west. "Right over there", her father told her pointing from the balcony towards a large wooden structure. "That's West Side Park. It's the home of the famous Chicago Cubs."

The bears that Mabel thought her father had described gave her nightmares all winter until spring came along, the park sprung to life and her nightmares went away. She fell in love with baseball like most young girls fall for flowers or adventure books. That season the team set the record for most wins in a season and won the National League Pennant. When her father had a little extra money he would take her to the park where they would sit in the cheap seats for a nickel a piece. When he couldn't take her she would sit on the balcony and stare at the park during home games, waiting for the crowd to erupt in cheers to inform her that they had just scored a run, or made a great play. After the game she would shout to the men leaving the park asking for details from the game. What was the score? Who pitched? How many stolen bases were there?

Despite losing the World Series that year to what she always called "the Lesser Chicago Team" her father came home from work on her 7th birthday with a shiny, brand new 1906 nickel and presented it to his only daughter. "This was the year the Cubs won the Pennant," he told her. "Use this for good luck and maybe they will win it again, maybe they will even win the World Series." She gripped the nickel tight in her hand and hugged her father. It was the most money she had ever had, and she was determined never to spend it.

The next season she took her good luck coin everywhere she went. She took it to the stadium where the Cubs proved themselves unstoppable in 1907 and come October they swept Detroit 4 games to 0 to win their first World Series. All because, Mabel thought, of her lucky nickel.

That December on her 8th birthday her father again gave her a new nickel. 1907. The year her team won the World Series. Again she carried it for a season, and again it helped them win. By the end of the year after winning three pennants in a row, they found themselves back in the World Series. This time becoming the first team to win Back to Back World Series.

If she wasn't convinced before, she sure was now, it was the nickels that brought all the luck to the team and on the cold December morning of her 9th Birthday she ran downstairs the second she woke up expecting a 1908 Nickel to replace her former charm. Her father, sitting with his morning tea and paper pretended that he forgot, but she knew better. He loved how happy this simple token had made her when he pulled it out from under his teacup. But he had no idea that this was the last World Series coin that he, or anybody else would ever give her.

Season after season came and went without the hope of winning another championship. In 1910 they made the World Series but were crushed by the Athletics with the 1908 nickel in her pocket. Every time there was a stressful moment in a close game she would pull it out and hold it between her fingers and rub it back and forth feeling the V on the back which she said stood for 'Victory' and not the Roman Numeral 5. But it didn't seem to work on this nickel as it had with the two she had before. In 1916 the team moved from her modest neighborhood park 6 miles north to a massive stadium they would play in for at least the next hundred years. So at 16 she bought a used bicycle for 10 nickels. When she first saw Wrigley Field she thought she was in heaven. A sign read"Only 5 cents for a Hotdog and Coke!" "Not a chance." she thought inspecting hers.

In 1918 they lost the World Series again to Babe Ruth and the Boston Red Sox. And then lost again and again and again in 29, 32, 35, 38, and 45. All the while, Mabel got older and older, and Mabel's nickel got more and more worn down. "If this nickel is full of luck, then it's full of bad luck." she told her teenage children in 1932 after Babe Ruth, now with the Yankees had called his shot, pointing to center field before hitting a homer there against her Cubs in her stadium, while she rubbed her not so lucky 1908 nickel.

In 1945 after the 7th World Series loss her nickel had seen she decided that maybe she was lucky anyways when her two sons returned home from WWII and her first of ten grandchild was born on her 46th birthday.

The World got more expensive and nickels lost their value. She watched them change their design to the Buffalo nickel in 1913, and again to a portrait of Jefferson in 1938. All the while her 1908 nickel stayed by her side and she would rub it for good luck.

In 1976 Mabel became a great grandmother. "Four generations she though, I am so lucky, and yet I am the only one of us who has seen the team win it all."

In 1981 when the Wrigley Family finally sold the team for 20.5 Million Dollars she kept everyone in her family well informed that her team sold for a whopping 90 Million Nickels.

My first memory of Mabel was when I was 6 years old seeing her throw the nickel at her TV screaming "I shoulda spent you on a hamburger!" And then she went and picked it up and put it back in her pocket where it belonged.

Everyone she knew called her in 1989 when the Universal Studios film 'Back to the Future II' predicted the Cubs would win it all in 2015 Sweeping Miami. "I'll be 115 and living in my third century" she said, "but I know for a fact they will break my heart. ."

In 1990 Mabel passed away at 90 years old and before she died she spent every penny she had except for that old worn out nickel, featureless from years of rubbing it for good luck, which she left to her youngest great-grandchild at the time. I was 8 years old, the same age that she was when it was given to her. It has brought me good luck through my life, helping me through high school, and college, first jobs, and marriage. But it hasn't helped the Cubs win another World Series, or even get back to one in over 60 years. I pulled it out in 03 when I was in college and the Cubs were in the playoffs. Then in 07 I took it with me when I moved to Los Angeles where I rubbed it watching them lose in the playoffs in 07 and again in the left field bleachers as I watched the Dodgers sweep Mabel's Cubs at home in Los Angeles.

When the Cubs made the playoffs in 2015 we all thought the movie would be right, and that if she wasn't 115 in heaven, that she was somewhere else making a deal with the Devil to make Back to the Future come true. But alas, it didn't and the luck of the nickel lives on.

Mabel lived to be 90, and left behind 6 children, 10 grandchildren and 22 great grandchildren. She was the luckiest woman I ever knew. Maybe, looking back that coin was never supposed to bring luck to 9 men on baseball field. Maybe the 108 year old coin was always supposed to be Mabel's lucky nickel and not the Chicago Cubs.

Montcollector's-250th-Post-Short-Or-Long-Story-Contest

Montcollector's-250th-Post-Short-Or-Long-Story-Contest

Edited by Mayflower2020
05/07/2016 12:40 am

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