Snapshots

For those of you under 27 years of age reading this:

A "snapshot" is what you would refer to as a 15 bit, 296 pixel, digitally enhanced, bi-matrixally loaded, semi-interchangeable, polarized composite image on your Cingular A-68 Top Shot cell phone and portable myspace device that you can't seem to separate from your friggin' ear long enough to pay for your Red Bull - sugar-free of course....unless it's your parents calling - then you act as if you never heard it, and let it go to voicemail.

For the rest of us...a "snapshot" is a photographic image in your brain.

But I digress - again.

When a person reaches middle age, memories become big. Yes, I know memories are just as precious to a teen, a new parent, or even a 10 year old. But not as important as they are to the people who are starting to lose the ability to create their own memories, and are now dependent upon children and grandchildren to produce the memories for them. Anyone who's been on the earth more than a minute or so knows most of these memories aren't actual movies, with talking and sequential action happening inside one's head. Instead, they come to us as 'snapshots', single photographic images that we apply to our consciousness and bond them together with a thing we call love.

Below are some of my snapshots.

**I was in the little league baseball championship game. I was 12, in my second-to-last year of LL, the starting shortstop and combined with the next year, I was to be a two-time All-Star. There were two outs in the first inning, but the other team had runners on 2nd and 3rd. A BIIIIIG kid was up at the plate, and he smashed a screaming ground ball towards me, and I clearly remember being so afraid of the speed of this ball, I kind of stepped to the side and made a weak attempt the grab it on the forehand side.

I did not.

Both runs scored and we eventually lost, 3-2. The next year we played the same team - won the championship - and I was part of the rarest of LL feats - the double play. As a matter of fact, we turned two 6-4-3 double plays, quite the accomplishment since in LL it's only 30 feet from home to first base, and nearly impossible to get the batter in a double play. But we did - I did - twice. And we won what we had failed to the previous year.

My snapshot: Winning the championship, right? Ummm, no. Stepping aside in fear instead of squaring up and taking that 100 mph ground ball....that is the snapshot I'm stuck with, like it or not.

**My Dad throwing passes to us kids in backyard football games. He sure did throw a pretty spiral back then. We used to catch it, then have to do an acrobatic move to avoid breaking our legs on the 3 foot drop off into the neighbor's back yard. Hand-eye coordination and good foot skills were at a premium in those games.

**Throwing a rubber ball against the steps of my parents house, hour after hour after hour...learning how to throw different pitches and catch balls that bounced back to me. The ones where I struck the very edge of the step always came back the hardest, making over the head and diving catches the rule of the day. I sure do miss doing that.

**All the neighborhood kids standing around in the rain, dancing, singing, and romping to the radio announcement that the long-suffering Red Sox had won the 1967 American League Pennant. They would lose the World Series in 7 games, but the loss is not my snapshot. The joy in the rain is.

**My brother sitting on my sister's wedding cake mere hours before the ceremony.

**My sister baby-sitting for the rest of us wild idiots, and putting her hand threw a plate glass door window while trying to keep me from going outside.

**Getting caught by my mom's sister (my Aunt) hosting a rather rowdy party for my high school friends when my parents were away. Ooops.

**Basic Training...wearing a uniform and getting to be a soldier for the first time...a sensation and joy that has not left me to this day.

**Watching the amniotic fluid come rushing out in a waterfall-like affect, 2 seconds before I saw my daughter - my first child - come out and say hello.

**Missing movement for a 60- day deployment to the desert because of my first son's birth.

**Weeping openly at what my wife had created in birthing my second son.

**Hitting the dirt and peeing my pants the first time I was in the middle of an artillery battle. For those in the bungee-jumping crowd who like to experience everything - take it from me - you might want to take a pass on this one.

**Seeing the look and pride on the faces of my mom and dad when they watched both boys play competitive soccer games on the same day they saw their granddaughter AND great granddaughter on the sidelines as well. Four generations represented in the same place and time.

These are some of my many snapshots, melding together as I get older, yet each trying desperately to hang onto their own place; their own individuality. They are mine to keep...no one can wrench them away from me...nothing can taint or ruin them. And only I can choose to delete or save them.

As I reflect on these any many other things, I'm struck by the fact that I am again afraid. The ball racing towards me at lightning speed is life itself. My life; the life of my loved ones; family. It's up to me to stand in front of the ball and square up. It's up to me to bend my knees and lay my glove down, knowing at any second the ball may take a bad hop and hit me right in the mouth. Will this particular grounder be a double play or a two run error?

I wish I could tell you, but I don't know either.