Opening Day

It was tough to hang a welcome sign by himself but he was used to working that way. It forced him to think outside the diamond and kept him from being disappointed.

“Welcome to Opening Day 2002” on a banner he spent six hours trying to order now fought him for the right to sleep in. Perhaps it was the cold, or arthritis, or the zip ties.

He’d made sure to drag the field first, so the dust could settle before the decorations his wife and kids would bring once the sun came up.

Four seasons as president had made this place a destination, just a small town ball field buried deep in the forest of a California mountain that hummed in anticipation. 

But well maintained things always garner an audience, even when they don’t care to understand the effort.

Besides, he never fancied himself a gardener.

It didn’t matter how many hours he spent picking rocks from between the pitcher’s mound and second base—knee cartilage a long gone creature comfort. He wasn’t advertising, and his pain was none of their business, so he shook hands and said “you’re welcome” when they beamed at his field.

A bloody nose from a bad hop was a rare thing, and he was proud of that. Both his sons played middle infield, and hitting up the gut was good baseball.

That was always his goal anyway, to play “good baseball.”

In an hour, a large custom purple trailer should roll in. Twenty feet of hot griddle space for beer pancakes and sausage cooked by fine volunteers of questionable sobriety to feed the masses on a breezy spring Saturday.

Thoughts that lay unconsidered until shin kicked by time.

For ten years, a man labored and a community accepted the gift. A body broken by war and work gave more so a generation of small town kids could say “back when I was young” and beam.

I know I do. I miss those days like I miss the man.

I miss not knowing how it ends.

A decade of silent labor, handshakes and memories, would be laid to rest in a quarter-full military chapel. A vault planted on a land foreign to him and his family now holds the culmination of his labor. Veteran of a foreign war, granted his piece of America.

Hours of picking rocks had taught him differently, granted him insight and grounded his vanity. Perhaps this was why he’d named the field after a beloved local Santa Claus and former Darby Ranger after rebuilding it completely alone. A modest man doesn’t need things named after himself.

Now, when I run into faces of the past, and we talk of old times, they always remember. They tell me how much they miss him, those days of baseball, and it is evident they know the effort, if only in spirit.

Hope. My dad traded pain for hope. A quietly disabled man spent over a seventh of his life for the benefit of his community, all in the hope it would be appreciated and passed on.

And it will.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​