Wow. Almost two weeks without an update. That’s pretty sad. Every time I say that I’m gonna update more often, the longer the periods of inactivity become. Oh well, here’s one for Whome and the fella’s at the TVA…
“Down goes Frazier, Down Goes Frazier!!!”
Howard Cosell
The neighborhood I grew up in had about six kids my age or within at least a year of my age. So, most of the time you could always find someone to pal around with on those long summer days. But there was the rare occasion that everyone else was off somewhere doing chores or out of town. On those occasions, I would have to actually stoop and (gasp!) play with my younger brother. Didn’t happen often, but it happened. This fateful day, the game of choice was baseball. How can you play base ball with two people? Well it’s pretty easy when one can’t hit the ball. And my brother, at the age of nine, could NOT hit the ball. I would stand on the sidewalk, lob him some slow pitches and he would swing and miss almost every time. Sometimes though, he would hit a little dribbler back to me, and he would try to make it to first base, running like a madman. He had fun, and it passed the day so what the heck.
The ball we used was a generic heavy rubber ball. The kind every toy store had. You remember, they were heavy rubber and had an outer skin of plastic that would always crack with age, but they would last forever. And the older they got, the harder they got, and this ball had to be at least two years old.
The game of baseball that we played on the day I was sure I had killed my little brother began as they always did. Strikeout after strikeout, the occasional come-backer to me nothing out of the ordinary. Then it happened. He connected with the ball for the first time in his life. It shot off his bat like a rocket, soaring higher and finally landing on the OTHER side of what we called “the busy” street. This would have been quite a distance for myself to hit the ball, but for him to hit it that far was mind boggling. Measuring distances as a kid, it was always “house links.” Well he hit it about seven houses long. As I began to chase the ball, I realized that he was going to score on me. He had never scored on me. How can I let him score on me? I made a mad dash for the ball. You see, in our version of baseball, you could throw the ball at the batter rounding the bases, and if hit, the batter was out. As I finally reached the ball, I picked it up and saw him about to get to the water meter cover (third base, for those that have never played Front Yard Baseball) I started running towards him. As he rounded third and headed home, only about thirty five feet from the glory of scoring a run, I launched the ball. Still being about 6 “houses” away, I threw it so hard I fell down. It was at this point, I saw everything in slow motion. The ball, on it’s high speeding arc, my brother, with pure glee still plastered on his face reaching out to touch the tree (home plate) and ready to bask in the glory for days, and the ball falling from the sky like a laser guided hellfire missile finding it’s mark directly on his ear with a sickening "smack" . He fell like a sack of potatoes. Not moving. “Oh shit! I Killed him!!” I sprinted over to him as fast as I could, all the while wondering how long the official grounding period is for killing a sibling. About ten feet before I got to him, he staggered to his feet and wobbled towards me. His eyes were completely glazed over. He had a panicked look on his face and he said exasperatingly “Hey! I think I’m unconscious!!!” I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Later that day, when the swelling was down and he had regained his senses, he asked me if he scored. I told him, “yeah, you scored”. I wasn’t gonna tell him he didn’t. Heck, I almost killed him…
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Brain Death