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Close to Nowhere
By Linda Jones Sports column? I
really should have titled this column after either Barry’s or Claude’s
sports column. After all, I am, for the first time in my life, I
think, writing a sports column! My granddaughters
are on a softball team this year! Mere, at 14, is too old to actually
be on the team, so Jennifer Shaw, the coach, made her assistant coach.
Trust me, Jennifer needs the help! Remy, at 12 and Jennifer’s daughter
Morgan, at 10 (BFF’s!) are both on the team! Mere’s
Wednesday night youth group teacher, Nikki, came to Harmontown,
fleeing Hurricane Katrina. Her family liked it here so well that she
and her husband Chad, with their son Hunter, stayed. Nikki is home
plate umpire. Chad is the opposing team’s coach. Hunter, a really good
softball player, who this week has spectacular purple hair, plays on
the team with his dad. On “our” team are also a couple of boys from Mere, Rem and Morgan’s Sunday school classes -- Sam and Jim. Sam
is totally dignified and totally dedicated to church, school and
athletics. He hunts with his Wildlife Conservation officer dad Keith
with the same zeal he puts into everything else. Jim
is cute. Not that Sam is not cute, he is, but Jim is one of those
charasmatic cute people. Jim doesn’t like to be called cute though! There are several other players on “our” team, but I don’t know them well yet. I’m sure by the end of the season, I will! Last Friday night, I attended my very first ball game! And, I stayed the entire game! What’s more, I enjoyed it tremondously! Yes,
it was 122 degrees in the shade (OK, maybe only 95+.) No, I wasn’t
bright enough to wear a baseball cap to keep the sun out of my eyes. I’d
brought a book to read, because as a non-sports person, I was pretty
sure I’d be really bored. After all, I’ve spent countless years at
ballet rehearsals, with a book. It’s pretty easy to read at ballet
practice -- the music is usually wonderful and you can glance up
occasionally and see your ballerina floating around. You
can’t take your eyes off “our” pee-wee team though! You’ll miss a
totally dramatic hit, soaring ball, and scrambled catch -- then the
pitch back to whatever base or the pitcher trying to get a runner out. We won by one run Friday night. It was a jubilant crew that returned home! We
didn’t win Monday night, but we still had fun! Remy and Morgan both hit
the ball and all of them had the chance to run after the other team’s
ball. Does this mean I’m a sports fan now?
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