Game On

For years, the daily routine was Calen and Wyatt would come home from school and get a game on in the front yard.  It didn’t matter if it was hot or cold, football or baseball, or two or more brothers, cousins, friends, or neighbors.  It was most often some combination of the two Kirklands, the three Morgans, the four Johnsons, the two Gulleys and the lone Dillard . . . no girls allowed.  The air would be full of voices and laughter wafting into the house through open windows.  Balls were always bouncing off the roof or picture window.

When a baseball hit the front window one day and he could tell it was powered by muscles that were becoming a little more developed, Jim flew outside and said, “No more baseballs. Here’s a tennis ball!”

On rainy days, the venue changed–sock baseball or Nerf basketball was whole-heartedly played in our long living room—perfect, if a player didn’t mind leaping over couches and darting around tables, TV, or bookshelves.

Calen always knew the importance of uniforms.  He spent almost as much time cutting sleeves and necks out of white T-shirts and drawing team logos on them as he did playing.  He regularly played as the star of the Seattle Mariners or New York Yankees.  He wouldn’t think of playing without wearing one of his designs.  Football jerseys filled the gridiron one day, and baseball gloves, pants, and cleats would be present the next.  If the game’s genre changed within the day, uniforms would quickly be shed and replaced with something more appropriate.

The older boys would pick sides and make the younger ones play against them.  The younger boys had to pay their dues . . . slack was never cut; concessions were never made.  Little brothers had to go for balls landing in the poison ivy and tick-infested weeds, and they readily complied—a small price for exclusive membership into the most coveted neighborhood sports club.  Rules were rules, and they were sticklers for them.  There would be arguments, minor injuries, hurt feelings, and wrestling holds executed.  Someone might be tormented until they went home mad.  Life lessons were grasped and boys would gather again for a repeat, the next day.

The veterans emulated their favorite professional players, while the rookies secretly admired the older boys.  When the vets would be called away for a birthday party or a game of paintball elsewhere, the rookies would be out on the field organizing teams and barking orders like they were old pros in charge of the events everyday.  Such was the day Wyatt and some of his younger buddies decided to chalk the baselines with flour.  There was only enough flour to mark halfway to first base, but they very deliberately and painstakingly traced the line until it suited their liking, ending up with more flour on themselves than the ground.

This ritual of getting up a daily game went on and on for years, and I’m not sure when it ended.  I didn’t see it coming.   I must have blinked. One day, I missed hearing balls hitting and rolling off the roof above my head.  Home-made bases cut from old truck mud-flaps, juice boxes and fruit roll-ups, and foul lines cut shorter with a mower, gave way to cars, girlfriends, high school games, proms, and military training.  Once inseparable, neighbors moved away.  Baseball bats leaning against trees, were mowed around and left to weather; foul balls lying in the woods have since been covered with fallen branches and poison ivy. Dogs that chased little boys around those bases and into end zones, lovingly nuzzling legs, have been laid to rest at the boundary between lawn and woods.

I look out the front window and see trees, planted when we moved into our house nineteen (now 27) years ago, when Wyatt was two weeks old and Calen five, aging along with us.  The lump growing deep inside my throat makes it hard to swallow, as my lips and chin begin to quiver.  I hold the scalding tears back as long as I possibly can, until they insist on blurring my vision and escape their too small reservoirs, seeping down my face.  I slowly turn to walk away, when movement out of the corner of my eye causes me to linger and hold my breath.  I strain  to hear the cheers on the other side of the closed window, and see arms frantically waving a runner home.

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This story was first published on my Oxymoronlover’s blogsite in 2010.  It is the clove of sports seasons again and even more years have passed.  Calen now dresses our one-year-old grandson in Chicago Bears’ football and University of Kentucky Wildcats’ basketball jerseys (while Greyson’s momma and her family try to sneak in Minnesota Vikings’ gear) every time a respective game is on.  We watch as a bittersweet tradition passes to the next generation . . .