Two Chairs on the Green

 Saturday night, Michele and I sat on the green or common at Elmhurst College for the third time in our lives.  The first time was the day we dropped Clare off for school; the school served us lunch, which was the least they could do given how much we would be giving them in tuition, even after scholarships and grants. The second time was Clare’s graduation four years later, and the third time two years and two weeks after that, for a jazz concert by the school band.  We knew what chairs to bring, thanks to travel ball.

Chairs are important.  Without them, backs will seize up halfway through a Saturday spent sitting in bleachers.  If the chairs are too heavy, arms will seize up as you drag them from the parking lot to the most distant field in the tournament complex or, as happened to us in Toledo one weekend, your arms will seize up and your head will spin as you drag those chairs through 95-degree heat with 95-percent humidity.  Goldilocks knew what she was doing testing everything out first.

We finally came up with the right chairs, camping ones, midway through Clare’s second year of travel, a little after Toledo.  They’re lightweight and durable with a little table that slides off to the side when not in use; you can literally lift them with a finger.  And what those chairs have been witness to, the homeruns, the popup slides, the heartbreak of not winning every game or batting too low in the order or not playing at all.  I imagine that if they could talk both chairs would say they liked most of all the homeruns and Grammy-winner Patti Austin covering Ella Fitzgerald as a full moon rose over the green at Elmhurst College.