Biography Part 1

Originally Posted: May 23, 2006

The other day JD said... whatever happened to you and your autobiography jazz.... (i dont think he actually said jazz though... but thats off topic) so here goes part one. No characters are fictional unless mentioned as so.

lil backstory: When I was ... hmmm... what is the age for little league baseball... I want to say like 6, 7... 8. Lets go with 7 for now... and I'll get an age check from the rents later. When I was 7, me and Jonathan (brother) used to play rediculous amounts of sports around the house and in the yard and street (which reminds me of another couple stories but thats for later... anyway) The main sport we played though was baseball. Living in a fairly new subdivision at the time.. most of the area was still trees (wow.. actually writing this down is sturring up other memories... note to self: "underground fort" story and pine leaf fort story) moving on. There was however alot of kids in the neighborhood at the time. Casey, Kelley, Jenny, Daniel, Matt, ____, Matthew, Brett, Cody, Brandon & Sam (who was much older and probably wasnt actually around until a few years after this story) Apart from the girls... all the kids would come to the circle nearest our house and play baseball or kickball (you know what... this backstory I think will have to be the first story after all.. there is too much info here). Apart from arguements on the exact distance needed for a home run if you didnt hit over the power lines at the back and which hits were foul... the games were always a blast. We had Everything! If you are sitting at the end of any circle and looked at the incoming road... this is how it would look. In front of you would be a manhole cover... nothing special... but always covered in dirt and small stone... as if it was never opened. That fact alone made it more appealing to attempt sliding and was therefor deemed at some point home plate. To your right... just behind you was a tree... I dont remember what kind of trees these are... but the have leaves with needles and red berries... someone help me out on this one. This was one of the few trees we never climbed for obvious reasons but it was convenient as a batting team dug-out/cool-off area. First base was our mailbox... there were 2 mailbox side by side, and occasionally tagging either mailbox was acceptable. Unless the game was close and people got a little more picky with the rules. When the concrete had been poured years ago, it had left an overlap mark made in the shape of a teardrop. and then continued up the street. Right there where the tip of that teardrop formed was second base. on days with alot of cars coming in and out we switched second base to the closed corner of our driveway touching the street which put 2nd base on the right side of the street with 1st base. Until a house was built across the street from ours, 3rd base was the basketball goal Brandon's parents had put on the side of the street. Afterwards, it became the beginning of the walkway to our new neighbors front door. There were just a few rules. If there were too few players.. Ghost men could only run when "Pushed" forward by actual runners or other ghost men being pushed by runners. Anything hit or kicked over the rear power line was a homerun. Anything that bounced off the cars in my driveway was fairplay.. runners could advance. Anything hit under the powerline but farther than matthew,brett and cody's mailbox was a homerun (disputed but it didnt matter b/c anything that far back was inside the park homerun anyway. If you hit into the trees on the right side of my house (relatively same distance as the powerline) it was either a automatic double or homerun depending on majority vote. For baseball we either used a real bat or stick and a tennis ball.. or the plastic woofle ball stuff. We never used Tees either.. and that kind of leads into the story I was going to tell.

So there is one of my great memories... not actually a story or single moment I guess... but still some stuff about my childhood...

To come:
Forts, "The Indian Campground", Peanut League Baseball, The trail and the shortcut, Jr Year HS Spring Break, Middle School Home Ec/ Tech Class, WBDA/Videos/lifegaurding. Gavins Diahatsu Sharade and TPing, Sticks River Tubing and the liter of Parrot Bay..... and others