Ain't That A Kick In The Head

My old neighborhood had a multi-use baseball field. It was used primarily by Little League, but also for the occasional church picnic, and the Cub Scouts used it for their halloween fund raiser, The Halloween Hoot.  In 1998, one of the local parents decided to put together a softball league for the adults. It was co-recreational. That meant that each team needed to field equal numbers of men and women who also needed to be equally dispersed. The outfield needed two men and two women. The infield needed two men and two women. The batting order? Man/woman/man/woman, etc... Softball was the highlight of the week. Ten teams were quickly formed and stratified into the same cliques you'd find in high school. We had the jocks, the motor heads, the geeks, and so forth. After the games many people would hang around to watch the following game or games. Sunday afternoon became the day for tailgating and socializing. Some people brought their whole families to the field to join in ...

When my kids were growing up, one of the games we played every summer was badminton. It was an easy way to get them out of the house and the sets were cheap and ubiquitous. When play first started it was all the oldest kid could do to even make contact with a slowly descending shuttle cock. However, doing my very best, I could sort of aim for his racket. If I heard even the faintest ping from his strings it was a sign of tremendous prowess and it deserved much praise. Yay! Let's get Roger Federer a juice box. Over the years their skills improved to the point that we could almost have a game. Not a REAL game, but a let's-see-how-many-times-we-can-hit-it-over-the-net-bullshit kind of a game. This required dad to be able to lob those birdies with a draftsman's accuracy. If I could maintain a parabola as smooth as the arc of protractor I could expect a return. That was good! Ok, boring, but at least we were headed in the right direction. Finally, the first son became old ...

Gretchen is an animal lover. Even though we owned a couple of dogs, and a couple of cockatiels, and a parakeet, and an aquarium full of fish, she felt a great void in her life. It was a void that could only be filled by the addition of chickens, like live ones living in the back yard.  If you ever want to try your hand and suburban chicken ranching it is an easy thing to do. Just build a hutch, or better yet get your spouse to build one, then go to     mypetchicken.com .   Th ere you can point and peck your way to the purchase of poultry paradise.  She  did this. She selected the birds she wanted and when the chicks hatched they were sent out the next day via express mail.  They were only 99 cents each. (   + shipping and handling.  No warranty expressed or implied.  Void where prohibited.)      The post office called and said: "You have a package that peeping." It was clear from the start that one of the ...

We boasted the largest salad bar in town. Sixteen items. One was lettuce, four were dressings. After high school I embarked upon my working career by holding a number of low-paying, dead-end jobs.  I cooked at Pizza Hut and The Golden Corral. I worked at the town's hospital.  I sold burial insurance door-to-door. And I stapled together sofa frames at a company called Lloyd Manufacturing. Lloyd's sold furniture to the economically and taste challenged residents of Southside Virginia and Northern North Carolina. The factory was contained in a large corrugated metal building with a cement floor and no air conditioning.  The wood went in one side and colonial-style sofas, chairs, and love seats emerged out of the other. I was 19 years old at the time and had neither the experience or skill set that would otherwise qualify me to work there. I was hired just because I was friends with the manager's son. Very similar to this.  The plant had four departments...

A few years ago Gretchen and I were traveling when we decided to spend a layover in the airport lounge. It was busy that day, but we were lucky enough to find two stools together at the end of the bar. As we were sitting there an important woman walked in and stood right next to where I was seated. She looked really uptight, so I asked if I could buy her a drink. When she said "yes, thank you" and proceeded to order a double vodka I knew I was right. It's always $10 beer day at the airport. Unlike Dr. Phil, I don't believe in the cathartic benefit in complaining to strangers about your problems. Whining about that unmanageable cowlick will neither fix your hair nor be a good use of my time. One of the foundational principals of being an adult is you deal with your shit and I'll deal with mine, thank you very much. For whatever reason, on this afternoon I ignored that conviction and did something I had never done before. I said to this lady, "You seem...