Major League Joe

The 4th of July gave us all a chance to get away for the day. What a wonderful break. We went to visit two of our sons in another town. Dad had seemed to be a little confused about what was going to happen, but he was excited to not have to go to the adult day care for a day. So we all set off for a fun filled day. He, of course, wanted to talk all the way there (two hours), but he mumbles so badly that it was almost always impossible to answer him. If you ask him what he said, he usually doesn't remember. I told him before we started that I couldn't hear him while I was driving, but that has no effect, so he yakked on anyway.

It was hot on the 4th, but we had a very nice picnic lunch. Then we went to the park to play whiffle ball. We took along a lawn chair for Dad to sit in the shade and watch the game. He hates, and I mean he literally detests, anything smacking of exercise. But he said, "No, I am not going to sit here and watch. I am going to play, too." Surprise, surprise. I feared he would just keel over dead in the heat, but I figured that if he died doing what he expressly stated he wanted to do that he would at least die happily.

But what position was he going to play? We decided that he would always be on offense. We only had 7 players, so he could bat clean-up for both teams. He also wanted to be the catcher, so that was fine. We agreed there would be no plays at the plate. He had a difficult time with the concepts of playing with only 7 total players. He had a hard time keeping track of outs. He had a hard time with the concept of ghost runners (when the bases were loaded and someone had to leave 3rd base to play catcher). But most importantly, he had a good time. He got 3 hits and ran the bases by himself. That was astounding. He never seemed to be worn out for even a minute. It was a shining day for Dad: a day of sunshine in his descent.