Garrison Keillor once claimed that God created the month of March in order that those who didn’t drink might experience the feeling of a hangover. The famous radio personality was referencing the intoxication of one gorgeous spring evening turning into a wretched, damp crud the next morning.
But instead of drinking, the hit-or-miss aspect of March weather brings baseball to mind. I remember the early games of my high school seasons here in the Triangle with my throwing hand tucked into the back pocket of my baseball pants in the futile attempt to warm my fingers. Not that anything would have given me a good grip on the slippery ball during the persistent drizzle.
I drove by a middle school field the other day in such weather and saw the players jiggling their bodies in between pitches, trying to stay warm. I shivered involuntarily in my toasty car.
Actually, what I wish to write about his fatherhood. This Saturday, I have tickets for my father and me to watch the UNC game at Boshamer Stadium. His birthday was in February, but the belated present was given in hopes the weather would cooperate. We’ll see.
One of the Ten Commandments is to honor your parents. When I was young and living in their house, this meant respecting their rules. But it’s truly only after I became a father that I fully appreciated everything that my dad did for me. As I find myself in the hustle and bustle—sometimes the tussle—of daily life with small children, I remember the ways that Dad was there for me when I was growing up. The small, subtle ways of caretaking, of shouldering my baseball bag, opening the door, and letting me choose the radio station. Not only did he pay for supper, but he stopped at my favorite fast-food restaurant, even though the chicken sandwiches were greasy.
As the father of a Little Leaguer, I know that it’s even colder to sit on a metal bleacher and watch your kid. But that’s exactly what Dad did, March after March, and after the game, if I’d failed to reach first base safely and disappointment hung over my head like a March storm cloud, he would still coax a smile out of me as he drove away from the ballpark. This reminds me of my favorite Keillor line: “You get old and you realize there are no answers, just stories.” There’s Dad behind the wheel, who would have been just a little older than I am now, saying, “Why don’t we stop for a bite on the way home?”
