Do you remember when…?

The crowning jewel of my private stash of athletic displays was laid in place around 21 summers ago.

The bases are loaded. I’m up to bat. The pitch comes in and I put all 70 lbs of my 13-year-0ld, stirrup wearing boy-body into this swing. I drive the ball hard past the third basemen. It’s right on the line and it’s making its way to the fence. The left fielder isn’t playing the line. It gets past him! Now he’s chasing it. My guy on third scores easy. So does my guy on second. I’m well past first and almost on second’s front porch. I’m cooking but the kid who started on base at first is doing something more like simmering. He’s slow. I steal a peek to left to see if the outfielder has the ball yet. Nope, but he’s close. Now I’m rounding third. I’m right on the heels of my teammate as we head for home. It’s going to be close. The throw comes in to the cutoff whose about to turn it around to home. My escort crosses the plate and I’m about to when, “Snap!” The ball enters the catcher’s glove like a laser guided missile.

He makes the tag and I’m out.

Psyche.

It took them forever to get the ball in. I cross home without incident.

If you did the math, that’s an in-the-park Grand Slam.

But that’s not what you need to know. The story you need to hear is about what we did after the game.

My dad and I come home, I do a quick wardrobe change, and we head out on foot to the Bergholtz Field Days. Every year around July 4th the volunteer fire company puts them on. Every kid synchronizes his summer calendar to these short days. There’s chowder for sale. There’s a parade on the 4th that almost goes by our house so we walk one block and setup camp in the front lawn of the church my grandmother cleans during the week. There’s no substitute for parade street candy that’s been won out of some strange kids clutches. I’m usually the strange kid.

Back at the firehall, there is one galaxy of rides and games surgically positioned on whatever’s slightly larger than a postage stamp. We’ve walked there countless times but the walk there this time will become a memory. I’m recounting the heroism that took place just under one hour ago. My dad is being a good sport and is egging me on. I feel like a hero. I feel like a son whose father loves him. We arrive and we do everything you’re supposed to. It’s a great day to be me.

The field days are no more. They were cancelled years ago due to the cost of insurance or some type of grown up garbage. I can understand. Things are different now. I haven’t thought about them in years. Until the other day when I drove by a carnival with my kids. At first it felt familiar. Then it felt a little sad. I want to say those field days are my youth and when they were cancelled so was a piece of me. But that’s not really the case, is it? They were just part of my youth. And I still have the memories. I would like to have taken my son and my daughter to them but that’s okay. We have our own thing. Perhaps someday they’ll let me know what it is.

I haven’t thought about the little league incident in years either. Until the other week when I was asked to sub on an adult slow-pitch softball team. It’s a doubleheader. I find myself playing on the same set of fields and, in the second game, against men who used to be the boys I played youth ball against. It’s good seeing them after all these years. Running around those bases is odd and comforting. The last time I was here the world wasn’t a real place yet. For a short while it ceases being real long enough to get spanked in back-to-back games. It doesn’t matter though. I’m 13 again and so is Sam, Jason, Tom, Jim, Dave and Bill.

Memories are a weird bunch.

They’re patient. (21 years is a long time to go missing.)

They tend to blend together, too. (I’m not entirely sure that all of the details I described belong to each other or multiple memories that are joining forces. It may not have actually happened that way. But it’s how I remember it.)

They’re yours. (Which means you can do what you want with them. Sharing is one option.)

My daughter uses memories to elongate the period of time before she has to fall asleep. It’s clever. She started by asking me to tell her a story about a trip Meredith and I took to Zambia. Then it graduated to stories about her and her brother. She wants to hear my memories and her favorites are the ones she’s starring in. If I’m an extra-special listener, I hear what she’s really asking, “Daddy, what do you remember about me?”

I always have a really “good answer”, I’m glad to say.

I’m sure your “answers” are just as “good.”

Why not give them to the people you made them with? You don’t need permission with this sort of thing.