Down Memory Lane

Rob posted about the couple of times he was knocked out cold, and asked if his readers had ever experienced the same. Unsurprisingly, most of his respondents were of the male persuasion. For anyone who knew me as a kid, it is also unsurprising to hear that not only did it happen to me once, it actually happened to me twice.

The first time was when I was around six or seven years old. We were living in Brook Park, Ohio, and visiting family in Abbeyville -- a little tiny town that’s long since been absorbed by Valley City. My Dad’s Aunt Dorothy and Uncle Aldy owned a dairy farm there, and right down the road from them, lived Aunt Dorothy’s father (always referred to as “Grandpa Gunkleman”) and brothers (Phillip and Raymond).

Raymond had a couple of sons whom he dearly loved, and wanted to some day take over the family farm. The problem was, there weren’t a lot of outlets for socializing (other than communing with the cows in the milking parlor) in Abbeyville. Raymond decided to take a corner lot and turn it into a baseball diamond, complete with grandstands, night lights and a concession stand. He popped for uniforms for his boys’ teams, and allowed other teams to schedule games in his field. It is true. If you build it, they WILL come. Other than the Crow’s Nest (the local pub), that was the biggest entertainment in town.

So there we were on a sunny Sunday afternoon (we always went on Sundays), sitting in the stands and watching a hotly contested game between the Abbeyville guys and a team of Brunswick boys. My dad had gone to the concession stand to get me a sno-cone – blue raspberry, I think (I've always been partial to the blue ones). Just as Dad was climbing back up the stand, his cousin Roger was at bat. Just as Dad was handing me the sno-cone, Rodger let one rip that broke the bat in two. As I was turning to look at Dad and take the sno-cone, the end of the bat hit me squarely above my right eye. Bam! Out like a light. (Did you know a sno-cone can do a dandy job of reducing swelling?)

Is it any wonder that I’m not a big baseball fan?

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Part two tomorrow. Toodles for now!

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P.S. -- It says something about the hardness of my noggin that that didn't put me right straight into the hospital. Roger could hit'em like a rocket.

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