It’s a miserable, cold Friday morning. I decided to drink beer and watch the end of the Blues thrashing of the Islanders last night instead of writing a Finish the Sentence Friday post. In my defense, the Uverse internet connection was not cooperating at all. I was going to just pass this week, but now that I’m at work, this seems better than working, so here’s my effort.
Before we go, if any of my awesome blog friends want to join in on this, here’s a link to the Facebook Group.
This week’s unfinished sentence is the following:
One of my favorite childhood memories is…
Hmmmmm. There are so many memories that I’m fond of that it’s hard to choose.
I enjoyed anything that involved me being outside for sure. My favorite thing to do was play baseball. I could play baseball from sunrise to sunset without ever resting and be happy as a clam all the time (why are clams so happy? Their existence seems pretty stupid, honestly. Is that even a real saying or did I screw it up?).
I was a pretty darned good ball player back in the day. Check out this form.
Skinniest clean up hitter ever.
The woman in the chair to the far right was the coach’s wife and my neighbor Mrs. K. She kept score in her score book religiously and was very strict. If the ball hit your glove on defense and you didn’t make the play, she marked it as an error. Lol, I don’t think we’re allowed to give kids errors anymore as it may give them a complex and self-esteem issues or some such bullshit. Notice that we didn’t need to use a full face mask to play baseball either like the kids have to do today. I guess since half of 1% of all of the hundreds of thousands of kids who play baseball nowadays take a ball to the face, it’s best to go ahead and over react just to be safe.
Anyway, I digress…
Baseball is a great childhood memory, and I love that I get to share it with my kids nowadays.
Ace plays softball.
Ready to whomp one!
Cool is a pretty good little t-ball player.
We even play in Walmart when they take too long to change my oil.
And G$ is…well, he’s G$.
Off to see the Cardinals play!
Actually, G$ is pretty committed to being a lefty it appears, so I’m sure that instead of developing a wicked curveball to go along with a 95 mph heater, he’ll probably grow to be a left-handed ballerina or cubicle worker of some sort…sigh, that’s fine, Buddy.
He’s shown little interest in sports thus far outside of throwing everything but balls and mostly at people, but it’s still early, right?
What the hell was I talking about? Oh, favorite childhood memory, ok. I got sidetracked a bit with the baseball stuff and I apologize. I’m going to pick one day that is a great memory for me, even though the details are sort of sketchy.
It’s a perfect day for this memory because my kids are home from school today due to the snow, and the day I’m recalling was a snowy day as well.
My dad was and still is one of those guys who’s a hard worker. I think he sort of enjoys going to work and, to my knowledge, has never used a sick day in his life, and if he has, it was only because he must have felt near death.
He worked in an industry that, for whatever reason, was totally unstable and he would get laid off every few years.
During one of his layoff periods, he got another job at an arcade while he waited to get rehired in his field. I remember he wore sort of a pin striped suit/vest looking thing and he was the man with all the tokens. The place was called LeMan’s or something like that and it was a stand alone building, as opposed to being in a mall like many arcades were. It was also every bit of 30 miles from our house, so it was no easy commute on a snowy day.
Anyway, I remember school not being called off, in spite of the snow, and dad packing me into his car to drop me off on his way to work at the arcade.
I was all bundled up with my backpack on (no seat belt I’m sure) in the passenger seat wondering out loud to dad how in the world school wasn’t called off. There was a lot of snow!
We were talking and talking and I wasn’t paying attention to the fact that when we finally stopped, we weren’t at school, but the arcade instead.
I don’t think I’d been to dad’s arcade yet, so a 10-year-old boy basically alone in an arcade most of the day with his dad? Uh, heaven!
It was slow because of the snow and I got to play whatever game I wanted free of cost!
I remember that I spent most of my time stabbing alligators in a game I’m pretty sure was called Jungle Hunt or something like that.
What graphics games had back then!
Stabbing alligators but I grew up ok, mostly.
It was one of the best days ever!
Now that I think back on it, I do wonder if school really was called off and my dad was just screwing with me. I never did figure that out, or I guess I never cared.
As a bonus memory for you, LeMan’s had bumper stickers and one night at home, I dared my younger brother, Dario, to put one across his junk, and by junk, I mean his penis. I have no idea why, it’s just something stupid that boys do. We challenge other men and involve the penis somehow, it’s in our genetic makeup.
Well, he did it and BOY, that thing was stuck on there real good! My dad was at work and my mom was freaking the fuck out trying to figure out what to do with her son and his bumper sticker covered pecker.
I’m not sure that I’ve ever laughed so hard or accepted an ass whoopin’ as being so worth what I’d done, but it was an epic caper. He soaked in the tub at one point, and I assume since he has a daughter today that it did come off at some point.
Thanks to our hostesses with the mostesses for this week’s FTSF fun.
Your fab hosts: Janine: Janine’s Confessions of a Mommyaholic Kate: Can I get another bottle of whine? Stephanie: Mommy, for Real Kristi: finding ninee
