Spring and School

One of my first baseball teams
Enid, OK (1953? 54?)
I'm next to the coach.

Last night I had a dream that I was once again playing baseball. I recognized none of these things: the diamond where we were playing, other players, the coach, the umpire.

I was older. Not "old" (as I am now) but not young, either. And I was called in to pitch. As the first batter stepped up to the plate, I realized I hadn't thrown a single warm-up pitch. But when the coach asked me if I was all right, I lied--said I was fine.

The guy batting was a lefty. First pitch: Ball One. But I'd thrown a fairly good screwball (a pitch my dad had taught me). Second pitch: Strike One (the batter had not swung). I don't remember the other pitches, but I remember trying a curveball once. (Don't remember how that turned out.)

And then the count was 3 and 2.

I woke up. (Whew!)

I lay in bed thinking a while about how much baseball had meant to me in the springs and summers of my youth. It's no exaggeration to say that I lived for it.

I'd played on my first team when we were living in Amarillo, Texas. I was 8. It was softball. And our team was the Ticks (other teams had other insect names). Our uniform comprised a single thing: a green T-shirt with a large white tick on the front. (It cracked after multiple washings.) I played center field. One fly ball was hit to me the entire season. I didn't move. It landed right in my glove. I dropped it.

But from then on it was Baseball Fever every spring and summer. Most of the time I was a catcher, though I did some pitching in high school, especially my senior year.

After high school, I played in some summer leagues in nearby Windham and Newton Falls. And it was then that I learned that my Hiram dreams of moving on up to the Yankees were simply that--dreams. I didn't have it.

But as I lay there last night, musing, I thought about how horrified I'd have been in Hiram High School my senior year if they had canceled everything that spring. The whole baseball season! And on May 11, 1962, our senior class presented a play, Ever Since Eve, in which I had a pretty good role. Not to mention the prom (held up at Punderson State Park), baccalaureate, graduation.

Throughout the spring we were all experiencing what I could call our tacit bittersweet farewells to our classmates. We would all be moving on. A few of us were going to Hiram College, but others were heading off to other schools, to other careers and jobs, and we knew things would not--could not--be the same after that June graduation day.

Back then, I'd tried not to think about it.

Later, when I became a middle school teacher in Aurora, Ohio, a dear colleague (the late Andy Kmetz) and I began what we called The 8th Grade Farewell-to-Harmon Show. Our first show was on May 18-19, 1984. And (with a couple of exceptions) we continued until May 1996. (I retired the next January.)

I worked on those shows all year before the May production--writing skits and lyrics for the songs we would use. One spring break I was in Amsterdam visiting Anne Frank sites (I taught the play about her), and at night I would sit at my little desk in that little room writing/revising skits for the show. Oddly, above that desk on the wall was a picture of ... Mickey Mouse.

After a start with a fairly small cast (see pic below), the cast grew--and sometimes swelled to over 100. Everyone who wanted in was in. Tryouts were only for those who wanted speaking/singing parts. (I still remember one dear student, now a Facebook friend, who told me: I'll be in the show, but I don't want to say anything.)

Those shows were among the greatest experiences of my teaching career. Very emotional--for Andy, for Gary Brookhart (a great musical colleague who played piano for us some of those years), for me. After the finale ("Bye Bye, Harmon"--new words to "Bye Bye, Birdie"), the only song we used every year, many of the kids were weeping. Me too.

the 1st Farewell Show cast, spring 1984

And so I lay in bed last night thinking about how horrible a spring school shutdown would have been for those 8th graders, for me, for Andy and Gary.

It's hard to imagine the loss and frustration of today's students--especially those in transition years--to those moving on to another level--or to life-beyond-school.

But last night, in bed thinking of baseball and 8th-grade shows, I came close.