New Baltimore, Ohio [12 Jul 2008|11:32pm] New Baltimore, Ohio isn't all that much like Baltimore, Maryland, I'm afraid. There aren't any trains taking you to Washington D.C. There aren't any paddle boats in the bay waiting for tourists to rent them for an hour. There isn't even a bay, for that matter. But there is a little church I never went to. And across the gravel parking lot from it, the strip of land from which I used to harvest summers. The first summer I harvested was eighteen years ago. It was a hard won harvest. It was three months of sweat and bruises all over my five year old body. Three months of never catching a single pitch. Three months of darkness behind a catcher's mask far too big for me. I should never have stayed behind the plate for longer than two innings considering my catching record, but none of the other girls on my team wanted to catch. Not knowing at all what a catcher even was on the first day of practice, I'd volunteered with a stout, "I'll do it." My coaches thought it was cute of me to volunteer as I did. They’d said, “You want to be our catcher?” And I’d said, “Well no one else wants to.” They’d chuckled, and ruffled my short blonde hair. They said, “well, alright little Laura. If that’s what you want.” I’d never thought about what I wanted. I’d never thought about what it would be like to choose my role on the team. I wouldn’t realize until eighteen years later how much that one act revealed of my character. So on the mask went. From that first day of practice through the end of July I was encased in my own personal jail cell behind countless little girls with little ponytails like mine, clutching little metal bats with clumsy but determined little hands. Somehow, even despite my terrible catching, we were an undefeated team. But that last game was close. I don’t know what the score was, and I suppose I never will. I’m sure by now it’s escaped memory and record. But I do remember that it was close. My coaches were concerned. Eighteen years ago, my coach pulled off the too big for me mask to look me in the eye and tell me with solemnity probably more appropriate for a dramatic mobster movie, rather than a girl’s coach pitch game, “Laura, if you catch just one pitch, just one, I’ll buy you a banana split.” I didn’t get a banana split. But somehow we won anyway. I can’t remember how. I only remember a frenzied run to the pitcher’s mound and a mass of little girls shouting and throwing gloves in victory. Sixteen years ago, I had a crush on that coach. No one could figure out why I was going through such a terrible hitting slump. My parents attributed it to an intense growth spurt I was having. I went through two sizes of uniform that season. Most people assumed along with my parents that the growth spurt was making me more awkward than usual. Really, it was my acknowledgement of just how different boys and girls were from one another that had made me so awkward. I couldn’t even catch a single fly ball, for I’d been reassigned to the outfield when another girl had volunteered to take over as catcher and proven herself far more adept at the position than me. I remember that summer, dad would get home from work and he’d take the bat and two softballs we owned out into our backyard. He’d sometimes pick me up, it would be the last summer he could still do that, and say “Come on, dude-ette. We’re gonna practice” and out in the backyard we would practice. Sometimes he would hit flies for me to catch, sometimes we would stage little mini games between the three of us, my dad, sister and I. And I would always catch just about every single ball hit my way. We’d always come in an hour or so later for dinner, dad enthusiastically telling my mom how well my sister and I had done. Then the questioning would start. “Well, Laura Loo, you can hit just fine in the backyard. Why can’t you do that at practice or in a game?” “I dunno,” I’d say, pretending to be fascinated by my peas. Fifteen years ago, I had a new coach, and I could hit and catch just fine again. Thirteen years ago, all I would have worried about was hitting a ball out past one of the little white posts separating our softball field from the tennis courts. I would have dreamed of endless summers full of softball and running with my teammates to the playground just beyond our field at breakneck speed to throw ourselves onto the merry-go-round and spin ourselves round till the darkening sky shook with backwards and forwards lurching. Sometimes we would get a running start and launch ourselves onto the swings. We’d lay on the swings with our bellies and pretend we could fly. Or we’d just swing and swing, higher and higher, and try to dare each other to swing so high and jump off, some of us almost convinced that if we could catch enough wind, surely it would carry us off into the clouds. I would have raced them to the ice cream stand just beyond the playground and tennis courts to arrive dirt streaked and sweaty at the little oasis in the gravel desert. And after the race and after the ice cream, I would have ridden home in that ugly, poop brown van and stretched my neck back to look out the back window and watch the stars follow me home backwards. Eight years ago, my uniform wasn’t yellow or orange anymore. And I didn’t play behind that little church in New Baltimore. My uniform was red and I was a lot more afraid of my teammates. Each of them thinner, smarter, sharper, quicker, more athletic than me. Each of them I always assumed, probably had taken coach pitch far more seriously than I had. I was certain none of them had ever spent an entire summer behind a mask out of which they could barely see. I was certain none of them had ever spent entire innings making daisy chains or drawing pictures in the sand, the way we had in New Baltimore. I was sure none of them had ever raced to playgrounds after games, to dizzy themselves on merry-go-rounds or swings. And I had no clue how on earth my high school thought all four teams of junior varsity and varsity baseball and softball were supposed to fit on one bus, but that was how we got to and from games, a whole mass of us squished together and uncomfortably sitting on our gear. A year and a few months ago was the last time I played softball. It was fun playing decked out in green. It was nice to play under the Pennsylvania sky. But not as nice as playing in New Baltimore. Three days ago, I passed by that little oasis. It’s under new owners I hear. But I stopped anyway and asked for a scoop of blue moon ice cream. It was still just as good as I remembered. I stepped away from the oasis and wandered around the back of the stand. I strolled first to the tennis courts, making a quick nod to the playground, barely resisting the urge to run to it, to fling myself on the merry-go-round, barely keeping myself from launching onto one of those swings and continued on to the harvesting ground, past the little white posts, all the while savoring the sweet, vanilla, blue of New Baltimore Ice Cream. 6 comments|post comment

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