September 30, 2004

Of Bread and Baseball

I will again write about a family member, because to tell the truth my family has plenty of random stories and they seem to be the ones that come to mind. My great-uncle JC was an interesting man. He lived through some very hard times in rural Alabama. He was a hard man.

One time he went out to buy some bread and didn't come back for a week. When he did return, he didn't want to deal with answering questions about where he'd been. He went around the house knocking and tapping on the windows and walls until he was sure my aunt was good and nervous and then he walked through the front door. She was so relieved to have someone home with her that she never asked about it.

JC also played on the local recreational baseball team. One evening the game was tied, it was the bottom of the last inning with two outs and JC was catcher. The sun was almost gone and there were no stadium lights. Everyone was ready to go home. The pitcher wound up, and threw the ball. There was a loud SMACK! into JC's glove. The ump yelled, "Strike THREE!" An argument then ensued between batter and ump, with the batter saying it couldn't possible have been a strike, the ball was too high. So why did Uncle JC and the pitcher collected their things and leave chuckling? Because the pitcher never threw the ball, JC just pretended to catch it!

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