Michele and I
spent Saturday at someone’s summer home on a lake in Wisconsin. A steady 30-mph wind postponed my debut on a
jet ski (hold onto your tickets for that show, though. Believe me, it’ll be death-defying.). So everybody over the age of 16 passed the
time in conversation, during which Michele mentioned how much I miss watching
Clare play travel ball. The next day I
gently reminded my wife that I don’t miss travel. It was too much Dickens and Darwin for any
sane person to enjoy.
What I do miss are
the individual at-bats. What will my
daughter do now? It’s 0-2. Will she know to protect? Will the ump ring her up because he’s hot and
wants to go get water? Why is it always
0-2? I learned to savor the time between
pitches. That way lay eternity.
After I delivered
my little reprimand, it suddenly occurred to me that we were at the anniversary
of the one travel tournament I would very much like to relive. Clare’s team won it in large part due to her
five homeruns and 12 RBI’s. Those
figures are all the more impressive given that she only pinch-hit in the first
game—her punishment for me getting us there late—and then batted in the
six-spot the rest of the tournament.
.I called my
daughter with this now eight-year old memory, and she was impressed enough to offer
one of her own. “Do you know where I was
four years ago today?” Where? “Amsterdam,” which is how this whole thing
got started.
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