Blimp Ears

Clare called yesterday from Valpo.  “Guess what I’m looking at?” she asked, with the hint of a little girl’s excitement in her voice.  “There’s a blimp so low I could hit it with a bat and softball,” and I believe she could.

This fascination with blimps dates to the Fourth of July, 1994.  We had wanted tickets for a White Sox game but couldn’t get any, so we took a chance on the Kane County Cougars.  The Cougars were all the rage back then, a minor league team a short drive from Chicago.  Minor league baseball had a real cache at the time thanks to Kevin Costner and “Bull Durham.”  But in the movie, they weren’t selling, oh, ten brands of bottled water or shoot hotdogs into the stands with an air gun.  That was our last Cougars’ game.

Not that Clare had a bad time.  I’m sure she loved the action, which nurtured the not yet three-year old into becoming the not yet four-year old hitting phenom.  And I know for a fact she loved seeing her first-ever blimp, that big oblong balloon floating overhead so effortlessly a person couldn’t help but notice.  For some reason, the attraction proved mutual. 

There always seemed to be a blimp around our house in good weather.  Part of the reason was that we live close to the Eisenhower Expressway, which serves as a big concrete arrow pointing to downtown; the blimps are usually anchored out west at DuPage County Airport.  But mostly, though, machine and child just had a thing going, so much so Clare could hear the engines before she could see anything.  Then, the blimp would appear, and Clare would shout, “Daddy, I have blimp ears!”  It had nothing to do about their size, I can assure you.

A blimp even visited the week before Clare’s tryout with the Oak Park Huskies travel team.  When I saw it, I knew Clare was in.  I just didn’t know she’d be a 13-year old making a 16u team.