“Put me in, coach”

August 5, 2024

In so many words, that’s what Noah pled to his managers at the senior softball game yesterday afternoon on the Little League field.  His actual remark was, “I’ve never put on a baseball glove in my life so give me a second.”  They put him in the infield, too, where he was certain to get some balls hit to him.  Excellent camp!

This game had a very casual feel to it, the Bow and Arrow exception rather than the rule. Umpire Rob Horne helped this baseball purist forgive the youngsters since one of the squads was loaded with talent and the outcome was never in doubt. “You should have seen these same boys playing Ultimate Frisbee last night,” he told me, “And they were putting all their best efforts into that game.”

This lecture calmed me down as I was in a bit of a baseball funk having earlier endured J-Ball, baseball with a tennis ball and racket. This is a fabulous game when it is not adulterated by boys running the bases backwards.  OK, I jest, as it was quite obvious that good fun, fellowship and participation carried both J-Ball and the day once again.

As per the plan, we flipped the schedule yesterday morning with different age groups doing track events and boating races. Yes, that senior tug o war was a hoax for the camera’s sake, but the events all were pretty good. I love the Kingswood cross-country running course back in the woods behind the soccer field and captured the intensity of the runners fairly well, for me anyway.

Sara was out on the lifeguard boat again and got her usual good photos and even, predictably, avoided posting evidence of any of the capsizes, of which there were a few!

It was hot and muggy yesterday afternoon, and you can almost see the sweat beads dripping off the boys. The waterfront was open most of the afternoon so that no matter when the games ended, the campers could get a refreshing swim.

Go to the last several photos in my album for this next part.

After dinner, we were all a tad suspicious of the weather even though the radar seemed to portend a delayed arrival of some inevitable storms.

I watched Nathan fill the boats with gas, saw a bit of the leisure games competition, tracked down the smoke from the fire building contest and ended up at touch football.  By that time I had armed myself with an air horn and found Mike Wiff and Scott Neff with same.

“Twenty minutes,” I speculated only to hear Mike sound the alarm. For a minute or two everyone seemed a bit surprised by the horn since there had been no thunder or lightning.  The campers just made it to the dining room for ice cream before a monsoon hit. “Your best air horn call of the summer,” I said to Mike.

Let’s leave it as this:  Woodworking guru, Don Becker, was salivating over his potential driftwood haul this morning in the aftermath.