Saturday, April 29, 2006
My mind wandered...
Baseball season is in full swing. I don't watch much baseball. I think it is far better to watch in person than on TV. Unless you are with a group of people and you have an ice cold beer in front of you. Then baseball isn't too bad.
Living in Connecticut I am right in the middle of baseball country. To the north you have the Boston Red Sox. To the west, the New York Yankees. Hell, you even have the New York Mets if you are so inclined or really hate the Yankees.
When I was a kid I was a Red Sox Fan. I used watch the games when I came home from school and wore the hats. I remember when they went from the red hats to the dark blue hats. I knew the line up and collected baseball cards. I used to have a stack of the gum that came in the cards because I would open the cards faster than I could chew the gum. I would go outside and play baseball with my buddies and pretend that I was Jim Rice or Carlton Fisk. We would play until it got dark and we couldn't see anymore. Then do the same thing the very next day.
It didn't matter that we lived in a not great neighborhood. It didn't matter that we played on an irregular sliver of grass strewn with rocks. It didn't matter that we had whiffle ball bats and balls or tennis balls or that first base was a tree. None of that mattered. We were stupid kids and we had fun.
We knew there were bad people in the world. Like I said it wasn't a great part of town and it was a housing project in Ronald Reagan's America. We knew there were bad people around. People who want to do bad things to little kids. Those people have always been around. That is a fact. We just hear about it more today. But everyone knows...it has always been that way. Even if it wasn't some pervert, there were people and places you just didn't go if you could help it. There have always been bullies or just people who get off on making other people hurt because they can.
But we still went outside. We still grabbed our bikes and rode all around, up and down hills, on the street, and never wearing a helmet. Who the hell would have thought to wear a helmet. If you tried to jump something on your bike and you fell...then you fell. You bled a little and got up. Hopefully you weren't wearing your school clothes so the rip in your jeans was no big deal.
That is almost a non-existent phrase nowadays. Kids are almost in prison. Even when they are allowed outside they have to wear helmets and knee pads and skate or bike in approved allowed areas. Yes, there are pervs out there so there and bulling isn't cool either but it does happen. The thing you have to learn when you are a kid is how to avoid bad situations. If you do stupid things, listen to stupid or scary people bad things happen.When every play date is arranged, when every activity is supervised, when every scrape is sanitized when do you learn the hard lessons in life?
I think it is better to get a taste of that when you are young than have it hit you unaware later. You have to learn that life isn't always nice and sanitized. You have to learn that there are people out there who are willing to hurt you just because they can. If you don't believe me look at Natalie Holloway.
From everything I have read about her or seen on TV, she grew up in a privileged suburban paradise. She was pretty, popular, if not rich then at least well off. But she didn't have street smarts. If you have street smarts, you don't get into a car in a foreign country when you been drinking.
Sometimes things do happen to you that you have no control over. And being paranoid all the time is not the way to live your life. You do have to, in the words of the Boy Scout motto,"Be Prepared". I believe that goes for mentally as well as physically. I also think that America, as a whole, is unprepared.
With all that is going on in the world, we have grown soft. Let's be honest, you may not like Bin Laden. You may say many things about his character, but soft is not one of them. America used to be hard. We were cowboys and steelworkers. Now we are lawyers and keypushers. We click and paste, file in triplicate, and endlessly litigate.
I don't know. I just see think that in America standing up for a principle, having honor, doing things for others, is almost ridiculed. Why should you respect the belief of someone who has a stupid opinion. I think everyone has the right to say or do what they want but that doesn't make it valid. If you call a roast beef sandwich a grilled cheese it don't make it so. And I don't have to agree with you because you are a dumbass.
But what does any of this have to do with baseball? Nothing. I was just writing and I went with what came into my mind. I do think making kids wear helmets to do just about everything is moronic though. I think that if you teach your kids about things instead of sheltering them they will make better choices. I do think we are a nation of wusses (myself included). I think America is the best country on Earth and the more we let people corrupt it, the more we let just a few run things, or let money have the final say in everything, or let invaders from outside the country dictate what happens, the more we are in danger of losing America.
And we can. Easy. History is full of empires and dynasties and countries that lasted a hell of a lot longer and are now gone.Is that where America is going? Laterzzz...
