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January,
2006
On the way
to work today, I saw a sign that read, “Now that I am older,
I thought it was great that I seemed to have more patience, but
it turns out that I just don’t give a shit.”
The more I thought about this the stranger it started to become,
the thought that it might be true.
You see when I was in high school, I would wish I was out of school
and my mother would always say, “be careful what you wish for, you
might get it.” Another saying was, “don’t wish your life away, it
will go fast enough.” Like many others my age, it was amazing how
smart mom became after I turned 21. Now I find myself as one of
those “baby bummers” you hear everyone talking about. Close to retirement,
aches and pains, 14 grandkids and no patience at all.
As I drive to and from work each day, I get road rage at people
who do not take the time to use a turn signal or change lanes sooner.
Many times almost causing a wreck, you know you are suppose to leave
one car length between you and the car ahead. Well, two cars will
squeeze into that space and run you off the road in doing so. Enough
of this.
You know things have really change from the old days, back when
there was no slow pitch, or (“sissy ball” as it was called when
it first came on the seen). It started in Farmersville and spread
to Coalinga before taking over Visalia and then Fresno.
I still love fast pitch softball, but I have to admit that I play
“sissy ball”. I enjoy it also, but it is a different type of ball.
I play two nights a week in the senior division and attend 6 to
8 tournaments a year, which will finish with the Senior Olympics
in St. George, Utah in October each year. Many others play every
weekend and travel to Texas, New Mexico, Los Vegas and the likes.
We get a lot of teams from Canada.
You younger players do not remember or have never seen a lot of
the following, but several of us in the league have.
The price of
gasoline at $ .239
The price of a hamburger at $.18
The price of a 12 oz bottle soda at $.05
The price to a movie at $.25
The price of an ice cream at $.10
When you would
play marbles, hide & seek, go into a neighbor’s house for cookies
and milk without have to worry about ever coming out. When you would
put playing cards in your spokes to make you bike sound like a motorcycle,
you didn’t even have to wear a helmet or kneepads.
When you could ride in the back of a pickup truck, enjoy the wind
in your face and not have to worry about a ticket.
You would practice your duck and cover moves in school each week,
line up for your polo shots, later to having to eat a cube of sugar.
When you had real food in the school cafeteria.
You screwed up in class and you could get you’re ass busted by the
teacher, when you would pledge the allegiance before class started
and no one objected. You would race home after school to watch the
Mickey Mouse Club, or American bandstand. Your radio was hooked
to an electrical cord that was hooked to the plug in the wall. When
you would set up for hours to watch the test pattern and it was
in black and white. You could watch “Make room for daddy”, “Bonanza”,
Rawhide, Wagon Train, Gunsmoke, Mavericks, the Ed Sullivan show,
Smother Brothers, Have gun will travel, the Rifleman, Superman,
Rin Tin Tin, Lassie, The Real McCoy’s, and would hear “Good night
David, Good night Chet.” You would understand what it meant to “Spread
the rabbit ears because the screen was snowy.” Listen to Buddy Holly,
the Big Bopper, Pat Boone, Ricky Nelson, Elvis Presley, Sonny &
Cher as well as the Everly Brothers.
Most of these songs on your 8 track player, this made you the cool
kid on the block cause you had one. When you would sneak your transistor
radio under your shirt to listen to the World Series while in school,
because the games were played during the day.
When you learned to use a slide rule and type a letter on a manual
typewriter. When you wish they would come up with a machine to save
a TV program that was on while you had to do your chores.
Remember when sputnik was sent aloft by the Russians and scare the
hell out of everyone, the Cuban missile crisis, the rioting 60’s
when you though you would never make it to your 21st birthday. When
Kennedy was assassinated and the county stopped, when Bobby Kennedy
and Martin Luther King were killed.
When they burned their draft cards, and the ladies there bra’s.
When the worst thing you did was sneak a beer at the games, or God
forbid tried some “Pot”. When you would go to a drive in movie and
fall asleep and not get home till daybreak and someone really cared.
When the “Playboy” magazine was considered pornography and all you
saw was some breast. When Lucy & Rick sleep in separate beds
as did Ozzie & Harriet. The Hardy boys could solve any crime,
while Spin & Marty would have all kinds of fun. Mr. Ed would
amaze us and My mother the car would confuse us.
When we would get up extra early to watch them launch men into space,
and the amazement when we landed men on the moon and did not doubt
it. When Alan Shepard became the first American to go into space,
and John Glenn orbited the earth 3 times.
Remember when we used wooden bats? When mag bats came on the seen
in 4 bright colors. The 3-sided bat, the hook bat so you could not
pop up? No helmets and no chest protectors, just old wire masks.
Wool uniforms and real leather gloves, when tournaments would draw
32 teams. Remember the old Central Valley Tournament and ISC state
tournament, which were the only one’s around and opened to all comers
since there was no real classification.
Yes, we have seen a lot, but you youngsters will be able to tell
you grandkid about all you have seen, computers, cell phones, fax
machines, I Pod’s. So much more and so fast, the demise of fast
pitch softball, I wonder if it will be around in 10 years or will
it be played on some type of computer system?
There is a saying and I do not know where it came from, but it is
true and goes like this:
“Young man as
you are now so once was I, as I am now you soon will be. So prepare
yourself to follow me.”
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