We lost a good one last week.  People called him The Nicest Man in the World. And those were lawyers talking.  William Paul Glass died Friday.  He was a court reporter in Birmingham for close to 50 years.  Founded his own firm.  Knew everyone.  Loved everyone.  Paul Glass was the kind of man that just looked kind.  Kindness flowed from him.  I imagine that's how authentic kindness is.  His smile was shopworn it was on his face so often.  He smiled with his eyes and his mouth couldn't help but follow.

He was also a Yankee.  As a lifelong Red Sox fan, I should say a damned Yankee.  Thing was, he was so danged nice  about it.  Paul Glass was a baseball man's baseball man.  I saw him several times over the years at Rickwood Field or the Hoover Met watching an old timer's game or the local double A team.  You never saw anybody in your life look more comfortable in a bleacher seat.   

You want to know how much Paul Glass loved baseball?  They put a screen up at the church and played a movie clip at his Memorial.  It was a scene from Field of Dreams.  If you haven't watched it in a while, que it up and check out James Earl Jones gently prodding Ray to build the field.....

^{_{Ray, people will come Ray. They'll come to Iowa for reasons they can't even fathom. They'll turn up your driveway not knowing for sure why they're doing it. They'll arrive at your door as innocent as children, longing for the past. Of course, we won't mind if you look around, you'll say. It's only $20 per person. They'll pass over the money without even thinking about it: for it is money they have and peace they lack. And they'll walk out to the bleachers; sit in shirtsleeves on a perfect afternoon. They'll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines, where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes. And they'll watch the game and it'll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick they'll have to brush them away from their faces. People will come Ray. The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good and it could be again. Oh... people will come Ray. People will most definitely come.}}

I couldn't help but look around at all the folks who came to celebrate Paul's life that afternoon.  I saw judges and lawyers and court reporters and others I hadn't seen in a long time.  We all came because Paul reminded us of all that once was good and could be again.

As it turns out, the Pastor was a Yankee fan too.  He told the story of meeting Paul at the behest of a mutual friend at a local restaurant one night several years ago.  Paul had stopped going to church some time before and they missed him.  When Paul met the pastor, they talked about lots of things.  You like baseball? Paul asked him.  An hour later they were still whooping up the 1961 World Series like it had been last year instead of 45 years ago.  Before he left, Paul told him he'd see him in church that Sunday. 

At the memorial, they quoted the headstone of one of Paul's favorite Yankees - Billy Martin. "I may not have been the greatest Yankee to put on the uniform but I was the proudest."   They spoke of Mickey Mantle and Lou Gehrig and Bobby Richardson. One man wore a Yankees jacket.  The Yankees emblem was on the back of the program.  I didn't know whether I was at a funeral in Birmingham or a ballpark in the Bronx.

Paul's brother in law spoke but he sounded more like a best friend.  He told of those "low breath" talks he and Paul had over the years about children and grandchildren and baseball and life.  The last "low breath" talk he and Paul ever had was a few days before Paul died.  Before he left the room, he told Paul down low, so only he could hear, "Paul, I love you.  And I may not see you again here.  But I will see you in heaven and we will play us a game of ball.  I'll be on third.  Where you gonna be?"    He told of Paul straining his neck up from the bed.  How he'd said in a hoarse whisper "First base."

William Paul Glass died last Friday.  He was 70 years old.  I imagine this moment he's on first base in Heaven.  Getting to finally play with all those Yankees he loved so dearly.  And smiling at the wonder of it all.....