THIS PAST SATURDAY WAS ONE OF THOSE MARATHON DAYS. I use the term Marathon in the sense of a long ordeal, because there is no way on earth you are ever going to get me to run 26 + miles for anything. In fact, you are not going to get me to run 26+ feet for anything. Let’s consider that issue settled, shall we?
Moving on –
HOLIDAY WEEKENDS USUALLY SUCK. This one, even though it is really an intrinsically minor holiday – Halloween – is another one that tends to slide downhill quickly. However…
This year our Halloween went by on a relatively horizontal glide path. No sudden plunges into nonsense or vituperative cruelty.
After a few years at this, my wife, the lovely and non-chocolate consuming, Dawn, and I have our standard Halloween operating ritual polished and smoothly running.
THIS PAST WEEKEND WAS HOMECOMING for the Students and Alumni of Indiana State University here in Terre Haute. (That’s French for, “I can’t feel my face.”)
The town was filled to overflowing with grads coming in from all over the country to revisit a burgeoning campus and attend the Big Game. There is always a Big Game for Homecoming. It must be a law or something.
“PEOPLE ASK ME WHAT I DO IN WINTER when there’s no baseball. I’ll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring.”
Rogers Hornsby
For those of you who are unfamiliar with Baseball, its History and its Allure I offer up that quote from Rogers Hornsby (1896 – 1963). He is in Baseball’s Hall of Fame and is considered one of The Greats of the game. He played and managed from 1915 until 1953.
This well known quote about what he did in the off season says so much more than is apparent on the surface. It is more than just a game. It is more than just a metaphor for life. Baseball is a living, breathing superlative.
Baseball season is over now. Over for me, that is. True, there are still the Playoffs and the World Series to be decided, but my team is not there. They have gone home and so have I.
Oh, I imagine that I will watch some of these games, but because I have no one to cheer for, to anguish over, and to call by their first names, I will watch to enjoy the beauty of the game itself.
Someone, I forget who, said that, “Baseball is a nervous breakdown divided into nine innings.” But if your favorite team is not playing it is like watching a ballet covered with dirt and pine tar. It is beautiful to watch, but you know that something is wrong. Where are your players?
Now that the season is over we, I and my wife, the lovely and Southpaw, Dawn, are keeping an ear cocked for any news about trades and player moves. Two of our pitchers have announced that they are retiring. Who will fill their spots in the rotation and bullpen? Who is going to be a Free Agent the day after the World Series ends? How are players recovering from injuries and surgeries? Will they be ready for Spring Training?
Spring Training – the truest harbinger of the changing of seasons. That robin may be frozen to the tree branch outside our window, but if Timmy’s hip surgery has brought him back then can new Black and Orange T-shirts be far behind?
We are not any different from Rogers Hornsby. We are also staring out of the window waiting for spring. But our window gives us a view of more than the snow and ice. It gives us the latest news and rumors.
The “Hot Stove League” is electronic these days with 24/7 talk and analysis as well as wishing and hoping. There will be second guessing until the cows come home and number crunching until it all turns into meaningless babble. That is when we pop a DVD into the machine. We can bundle up and watch Matt Cain’s Perfect Game and the Four Game Sweep in the 2012 World Series. We can sit in awe as MadBum strides in from the bullpen like Paul Bunyan ready to clear-cut the Kansas City Royals once again.
I can’t speak for the people who love football, tennis or golf, but don’t ever try to tell me that Baseball is “just a game.”
A more modern lover of the game than Hornsby, columnist George Will – who never played in the Majors, said, “Baseball, it is said, is only a game. True. And the Grand Canyon is only a hole in Arizona. Not all holes, or games, are created equal.”
Now that the season is over we are also sitting by the window waiting for spring. It won’t be long.
IMAGINE WHAT A DULL AND BORING WORLD it would be if there were never any accidents. I don’t mean those accidents like plane crashes or ships sinking – no, those kind of accidents we could do without. I’m thinking more in the line of “I’ll be darned. How did that happen?”
I WAS JUST LOOKING AT THE LIST of the most popular names for newborn babies in 2014. For 2015 I assume we won’t know for a while what names will make the Top Ten.
When I first saw the list of girl’s names I was struck by how “traditional” and even 19th century many of them seemed.
IT IS VERY DIFFICULT TO CARRY ON A CONVERSATION over lunch when there are 18 people huddled around the table. It can be hard enough when there are only two people, but the additional sixteen can really throw a monkey wrench into the process.
It ends up sounding something like this:
“So, how have you…seen my green beans, they…flew in last Thursday on…your Aunt Martha just before she…slid into third base.”
I WAS INSIDE THE LOCAL Toys-R-Us store last Friday evening. My wife, the lovely and more socially adept, Dawn, was going to a baby shower on Saturday and wanted to pick up a few small items. I was going along to carry the bag. I’m good at that.
As Dawn was actively looking for the right stuff I was just wandering along and looking around with a lost look on my face.
And, oh, what wonders did I see.
ONE OF THE THINGS I LIKE about going into St. Arbucks for coffee in the morning is that I never know what I’m going to see.
“St. Arbucks is like a box of Forrest Gumps.”
THIS MORNING IS THE MORNING AFTER our church’s Annual Strawberry Fest and I feel like a piece of meat with shoes on.
The other day the temperature got into the 70s and I was actually able to go out wearing one of my Hawaiian shirts (Wal-Mart Wonders) without feeling cold or having people stare. They do that anyway, but we’ll save that for another day.
WHAT’S IN A NAME? Quite a bit actually. The names we have can go a long way to deciding our direction in life. If a name wasn’t all that important you wouldn’t see actors and actresses changing their names as they enter the business. Example: Famous actress and comedian Whoopi Goldberg came into this world as Caryn Johnson.
Down the Hall on Your Left 