Softball

"Seagull" sounds something like "softball," doesn't it?. That's the only correlation between this picture and what follows.

Parks and Rec Summer Softball in Mathews used to be as competitive as the Olympics, and way more fun.

My mother was the one who first got me interested in softball. She played in the summer league with a bunch of ladies in their 30's and 40's. I had never played the game before in my life other than in my own back yard, barefoot, using a baseball (smaller and harder to hit) and an old wooden bat with a crack in it. I didn't even have anyone to pitch to me, I'd just toss the baseball up in the air and swing. For hours on end. There wasn't much to do around here.

My two younger sisters rarely wanted to play since they were too busy applying massive amounts of lipstick and curling their hair and fighting over who won talent contests and such.

The practices were behind the old Cobbs Creek Elementary School, which is now Cobbs Creek Post Office. My mother brought me to one of her first practices, and mentioned to the coach that she thought I could play. I was only about 15 or 16 at the time.

Now I didn't care one way or the other if I played or not, because as I said I'd never really played before and I was super laid back in those days. Everything was all, "Whatever." (I really miss those days. Really.) Nothing bothered me.

Except the look in that coach's eye when he sized me up. I could tell he just did not believe I was capable of hitting a ball. I began to think, "How dare he assume anything!" I started to grow a slight attitude. (By the way, that attitude has grown to world record proportions over the years. I don't know how to stop it.) But I was very young and skinny as a rake at the time, and a puff of air could have sent me into flight, so I do understand why he might have had his doubts.

Nevertheless, he allowed me the opportunity to hit the ball. He pitched me one, I swung, made contact, and casually placed the bat on my shoulder as I watched the ball soar way past the outfield and land on the roof of that school.

Chesapeake Bay Woman had just made the team. And her days of being Super/Hyper Competitive were just beginning.

And now, speaking of competitive spirit, I am off to beat my children in a game of ping pong. I will win. I always do. I simply must. There is no other possible outcome.

Except a hissy fit if I don't. Or a conniption.

Hissy fit and conniption. I haven't used those words in a long time. I like them. And they pretty well describe what goes on around here on a routine basis.