Wednesday, February 26, 2020

A Family Affair


Yesterday, Clare came by for dinner, hot dogs from Lucky Dog on 16th Street and paczki from the Oak Park Bakery.  Now, that’s how you do Fat Tuesday in these parts.

 

Talk followed food.  We celebrated Daniel Palka getting a walk in the bottom of the ninth with the White Sox down by a run to the Giants; Palka scoring from first on a double by Adam Engel; and Engel scoring the winning run on a single by Seby Zavala.  Who cares if it’s only spring training when it’s your favorites who’re doing the heavy lifting?  Then we argued over the matter of baseball injuries.  I think ballplayers have reached the point of diminishing returns when it comes to muscle mass.  There comes a point, or so I’d argue, when the body can’t absorb a violent swing; think Aaron Judge or Giancarlo Stanton.  The gym rat disagrees.

 

But this was not a “turn back the clock” night, and the daughter is married.  Her husband didn’t come with because he’s in school as part of a career change.  Chris left college coaching to become a high school teacher and, with luck, coach.  But first he has to take some classes in order to get his teaching certificate.

 

He already has a high-school football assistant-coaching job lined up, and at a place we know well.  The summer between sixth and seventh grade, Clare was playing on a summer high school softball team.  Don’t tell her I said so, but she was that good, at least hitting.  Anyway, we were playing this particular school Chris will be at, and we couldn’t find the softball field.  But now my son-in-law has found the football field there.

 

Around and around we go in life, connections made and remade.  I made sure Clare had two paczki to take home with her.    

 

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