Monday, February 19, 2024

Lilith Walks Down Memory Basepaths

The man was wearing a Kamehameha Baseball teeshirt. "It's almost baseball season!" I chirped. "I'm a Cards fan." "I know," he said. "You coached my sons." That would have been teeball, some 20 years ago. The team was the Kahalu`u Cardinals; they wore Cards caps and bright red uniforms. (I'd always wanted to manage the Cards.)
 
"Were they the twins?" I asked. Yes. I remember the twins; once I suggested that they could get outs without throwing the ball to someone else (a real problem in teeball), they ran all over the field tagging other players. It became a rout of outs. At that age, most kids are most fascinated by the dirt around their bases.
 
The twins played baseball at Kamehameha, and one was first team in the state. One works at Kualoa Ranch in marketing, the other for the Bishop estate. As the man started to walk away, dachsund on his leash, I said, "Oh, and they loved NASCAR!" "Booga booga and all that!" said the man in closing. (Likely misheard.)
 
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Postscript. Back when I coached 5 year olds in teeball, I found some stuff out. One dad leaned over to tell me to "tell my son not to act like a girl." A few years later, when I coached a pony league team, again the Cardinals, it was because none of the dads wanted to go to meetings or do the paperwork. It turned out that no one would let me coach, either. At the final potluck, a mother thanked the dads for doing the coaching, and me for standing in. Needless to say, I was furious.
When I saw the man's son years later, he was a lovely young gay man who'd been assigned to a Navy ship in the Mediterranean.
 

 

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