GOETHE SAID "one does not always lose if one has to do without". And that may be true, but it certainly isn't for me, not now, maybe not ever.
I pulled into a wal mart gas station and began fueling. Gazing idly around, I noticed a baseball lying in the middle of the adjacent four lane busy highway. A beautiful, lovely american baseball . Not new, but.....still...
My late middle aged heart racing along, I urged the gas on, finished, then dashed toward the road, fully prepared to dodge heavy traffic, risk life and limb....but it was gone. My beautiful trophy was gone. My heart sank, and depression immediately set in. I paid up, then slouched homeward.
My mistake was pumping gas before hitting the road. Let the customers back up behind me, and honk relentlessly. Let the gas flow onto the pavement and dwarf the BP Gulf oil spill! Anything for the ball. But the hesitation killed me.
Maybe some ten year old kid got the ball, after screaming at his parents to stop dead in the middle of traffic, risking a ten car rear ending pile up, and maybe he is enjoying it this moment. I don't care.
Maybe some impoverished black kid from a broken home got the ball, and shared it with his friends, who will spend the summer playing with it, and will turn their lives around, to productivity rather than gangs and drugs and violence.
Still, I don't care . My beautiful baseball is gone. I carry one around in my car, like every other real americcan, but who doesn't? Never was there a lovelier thing than a baseball, to hold, and to have. Perchance, to throw and catch.
Someday the horrible memory will fade, and life will return to normal. But not for awhile. My dream, so sudden before me and so close, is gone. And so am I, at least for the time being. I wonder if it had mickey mantle's autograph on it...
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