I never fertilized the lawn or killed the weeds through all of the years the boys were growing up. No, the lawn was never meant to be a show piece; it was a baseball diamond or a football field or a race track or a wrestling ring or...
Our lot is quite heavily wooded and is fairly pitched from the back of the lot to the street. There is only one section in the side yard that is almost flat and treeless. That became the most used section of our yard; the base path for a game of pickle or the field for various activities.
I just let the grass take a beating and let the weeds live. After all, we weren't cultivating a golf course; we were raising two boys. There would be years to come when I could worry about the lawn. Those simply weren't the years.
We ended up with gray patches in the grass where the pickle bases used to be; the ground hard-packed and bare. It was a well-used baseball field.
Our oldest son, Joseph, did his part to destroy the lawn in our side yard. You see, Joseph has always attacked everything he has done with full gusto! Perhaps nothing depicts that better than the years that Joseph created and starred in what could only be known as the One Man Baseball League.
Joseph spent innumerable hours in the side yard playing his own version of baseball. Even as a child, he was a statistics freak and memorized the stats for all of his favorite MLB players. He also memorized their unique pre- and post-pitch routines, their batting stances and their swings.
With that, the games began...
Joseph could hardly wait for the snow to disappear so he could begin playing ball. As soon as the ground was visible; Joseph would grab his Wiffle® Ball bat and a bag of Wiffle® Balls and head out to the yard. Joseph always had a huge collection of Wiffle® Balls; asking for - and receiving - a bag of Wiffle® Balls for Christmas and/or his birthday each year. Once "the season" started; Joseph was the player, the PA Announcer and the radio play-by-play man all wrapped up into one small boy.
He would make his voice as deep as a small boy could and announce the name of the first batter to the imaginary crowd as he approached the plate. He stepped into the box; following the "real" player's routine to the most minute detail.
Then came the first pitch...
Joseph took one of the Wiffle® Balls from his bag and tossed it into the air. The entire time, the play-by-play announcer would make the audience feel as if they were a part of the game. The batter would swing or let it go past; depending on the game plan as it played out in Joseph's head. The broadcaster called each pitch just like Bob Uecker did on the Brewers broadcasts.
Joseph announced every pitch for every batter; providing complete play-by-play. He even provided the background of the crowd wildly cheering a hit by the home team or an out by their opponents to complete the atmosphere of being at a real game.
Virtually all of Joseph's long fly balls to right would end up on the roof; bouncing and rolling their way to the bottom. Some of them would bounce just right to end up on back on the ground. Others, though, ended up in the gutter. The games would continue until he had recorded all twenty-seven outs for the losing team or until his entire collection of Wiffle® Balls was trapped in the gutter.
Then he would find me; or wait until I got home from work, to report that all of his Wiffle® Balls were stuck on the roof. I would pull out the ladder, climb to the roof and make the trek across the house to the gutter that was the Wiffle® Ball repository. Once there, I would pull them out of the gutter and toss them down to an anxiously awaiting little boy.
Then Joseph would start the routine again
Joseph retired from the OMBL many years ago. Although I have had to pull the ladder out to get on the roof for other things through the years; I haven't pulled any Wiffle® Balls from the gutter since he retired.
I putz around the lawn now; fertilizing and killing weeds, but there's still a bare patch where one of the pickle bases used to be. I don't think grass will ever grow there again.
That's okay with me, because each time I pass by that spot - I remember...
I remember when Joseph was the One Man Baseball League Champion.
I remember playing pickle with the boys; starting with a rubber ball then working up to a real baseball as the boys got older.
I remember those days gone by and I think; someday I'll stop fertilizing and killing weeds again when this spot is, once more, a base for pickle. Only then, the players won't call me Dad; I'll be Grandpa and I'll be telling them how their dad helped make that spot bare.
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