How Could I Forget?

When your wedding anniversary more or less falls on the start of the high school and college softball seasons, you have yourself a built-in memory aid.  It also helps to keep notes, which I did from the time Clare started softball.  So, let me tell you about Opening Day, Thursday March 20, 2008

The ever-scrappy Morton Mustangs opened on the road at OPRF High School in Oak Park.  Only a sophomore, Clare was already a starter; no one ever doubted her ability to hit.  As a freshman, Clare started off her high school career by going one for three on the day of our 27^th anniversary, with three RBIs.  You could say there was a synergy between the sport and the date.    

Clare’s sophomore season started in cold sunshine at 4:30 PM.  Maybe the mercury reached 45 degrees, maybe not.  According to my notes, I wore jeans; two pairs of athletic socks; a shirt; two sweatshirts; a pair of long underwear to go with a pair of briefs;  heavy jacket; ski cap; and gloves.  Michele and I shared a wool blanket, which probably held off the cold for, oh, a half-hour if we were lucky.

Clare played left that day and batted sixth; she went two for three with two singles.  It was hard to tell what was worse, the cold or those two Oak Park mothers sitting behind me before Michele got there from work; they were discussing whether their daughters would be attending Brown or Claremont.  I didn’t much care for the final score, either, 2-1 Oak Park.  And, yes, it snowed the next day, forcing the cancellation of games Saturday and Monday.  I helped shovel out the Morton dugouts Tuesday so we could get a game in.  Clare repaid my hard work with her first double of the season.

Three years later, on the exact date of our 31^st wedding anniversary, life was ever-so-much better.  Clare was still batting sixth, now as a college freshman at Elmhurst, and we were in Florida, where civilized people start the softball season.  Clare hit her first Elmhurst homerun that afternoon, against Taylor College.

I would no more forget my wedding anniversary—the young bride was resplendent in white that Saturday in March—than I would any of these games.