Dreams Unfolding | Inside Yankee

In a small Pennsylvania town there is a modest brick house, built at the end of the Second World War. You can see on one wall countless tiny nicks, the result of someone having thrown a hard object against it for hundreds, even thousands of hours. I know this to be true because, from early spring until fall, I spent my boyhood standing roughly 25 feet away from that wall, baseball glove on my left hand, battered baseball in my right. I would throw at the wall, as hard as I could. When the ball ricocheted back, I’d scoop it up and throw again, letting that wall hold the hope shared by so many kids that a baseball scout would one day see us play, and ask our names.

Although that dream ends for nearly everyone, in summer it fills the ball fields of 10 Massachusetts towns, where for generations the country’s best college players play in the Cape Cod League. There is no admission fee, and fans sit on modest bleachers, or on blankets on the grass, or in lawn chairs, watching the sport’s next generation in action. Several hundred Major Leaguers this season alone can tell stories about those fields of dreams on Cape Cod. Photographer Alex Gagne has followed the Orleans Firebirds for more than a decade, looking for the intimate moments within the drama of young athletes during the most important summer of their lives [p. 80].

Maybe it is because this past year has affected so many hopes and dreams, but as I read through this issue I felt them percolating in nearly every story, even the ones set far from a playing field.

Michael Terrien and Eric Martin, childhood friends from Maine, are bringing to life their improbable idea that Bluet, their sparkling blueberry wine, just might revitalize Maine’s struggling blueberry industry, with vast blueberry barrens transforming into Maine’s own Napa Valley [p. 72].

Massachusetts native Varshini Prakash, the 28-year-old founder of the Sunrise Movement, embraces the vision that her generation, born under the cloud of climate-change disasters, will now lead the fight to preserve the world’s fragile ecosystems [p. 104].

And when John Worth came to East Burke, Vermont, to open a bike shop more than 30 years ago, he had the audacious idea that here, in the hardscrabble Northeast Kingdom, a mountain bike mecca could be created. Over 100 miles of trails later, Kingdom Trails is, yes, sometimes a source of local angst but also a nationally renowned destination and a regional economic boon [p. 94].

In a summer when our dreams may be as simple, and as vital, as simply being with loved ones on sun-kissed days, this issue is for all of us who can look at those who never stopped throwing their own balls against unyielding walls, who never stopped believing in the impossible, and feel the prospect of boundless hope once more.

Mel Alleneditor@yankeemagazine.com