Musings on a Thursday Afternoon

The ghosts around here like to come out in autumn, drawn to the changing leaves and filtered sunshine, I think.  Yesterday, a few were walking along the lakefront bike trail.

There was my sister Betty, on the way to senior prom 1964 at the South Shore Country Club cum Cultural Center.  There she was taking me to the 57^th Street beach after a day at the Museum of Science and Industry, and there she was taking me to Rainbow Beach.  But she never worked at the US Steel South Works’ plant.  Those were different ghosts, of steelworkers rushing through the gate to punch in at the start of third shift. That would explain the breeze I felt from time to time on the trail south of 79^th Street.

The experts are right about sports being as much mental as physical.  I biked a little under fifty miles yesterday.  If I thought about that distance at the start, I’d have packed up and gone home.  Fifty miles, at my age?  I must be nuts.  That’s probably true, but it was worth it.  All I had to do was one mile at a time and find things to think about.  Or look for ghosts.

Part of the way I replayed Adam Engel’s throw Wednesday night in Minnesota.  The White Sox were up 2-1 in the bottom of the eighth with two out and nobody on.  Eddie Rosario muscled up on a ball that hit the wall in right field.  Somebody other than Leury Garcia might have made the catch, but no matter.  Engel raced in from center and threw a one-hop strike to third, where Yoan Moncada was waiting to apply the tag.  May his defense keep Engel in the league as long as it did Ken Berry.

On the way back, I arranged to meet Assistant FBI Director Skinner, who walked over from her office to meet on the lakefront at Chicago Avenue.  We talked Engel; American Ninja Warrior; the upcoming season of The Titan Games; and the water level of the lake.  Put two people with five college degrees between them, and what do you expect?

Thoughts of a child grown so big kept me going another nine miles all the way back to the car.  I parked in the same area from when we took Clare to science fair in seventh grade at the Museum of Science and Industry.  Ghosts.