All American
I spent the morning - this morning, the 10th anniversary of the attacks on 9/11 - reacquainting myself with a forgotten pleasure from my childhood: the game of Wiffle Ball.
You see, in Vermont we have our own Field of Dreams - two of them, in fact.This weekend was the 6th annual Jarred Williams Foundation Wiffle Ball Tournament and my company was participating for the second year. I didn't play last year and I couldn't play yesterday due to work, so today was my first visit to the site of the tournament and my first experience with a real live Wiffle Ball game in close to fifty years.
Wow. It wasn't quite the "magic waters" moment that James Earl Jones talks about in the movie, but it was close. It brought back memories of playing with my brothers in our back yard - several back yards, actually, since my dad was in the navy and we moved a lot when I was young - each of us taking turns pretending to be our favorite player of the moment.
It might have been Whitey Ford pitching to Ted Williams - or was it Warren Spahn facing down Stan Musial? Ernie Banks snagging a hot one up the middle or Willie Mays and his famous "basket catch", we were all of them at one time or another.
Good times. Certainly, the two fields recreate a time and a place that is real enough so that, with just a bit of imagination, you really feel memories "so thick you have to brush them off".
Our game was at Little Wrigley and no, we didn't win, but it was fun. After the game there was a short ceremony to honor the victims of 9/11 and, later, a home run derby and the championship games were played. The weather was perfect and, with all the rain we've had up here the last two weeks, the fields themselves were in excellent condition.
So, that's how I spent my day "remembering" 9/11. How about you?
posted by VermontGuy @ 2:04 PM
4 Comments:
I dropped off a friend at the airport. The terrorists haven't won.
Watching football. The victims of 9-11 deserved better (and a simple moment of silence would have been better) than the bromides of the idiot sports establishment
oops -less I be misunderstood, I am in now ay equating the wiffle ball game with the idiot sports establishment- I'm talking about the network dudes in the loud blazers and microphones
...listening to the first part of the NYC memorial “service” on AM radio. Didn’t desire a visual. Moment of radio silence really was radio silence–AM static, but no distracting noises like coughs or shuffling. The moment extended long enough to capture full attention....then, the bell tolled at the 18th century Congregational church at the end of my street, recalling the moments of impact....that Paul Revere bell has witnessed a lot of dramatic stuff over the years....awareness of aircraft flying in and out of the area was piqued. Atta launched his sinister mission from our sleepy little mallside jetport, and I can say the locals remain very affected by this offense.
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