Footsteps to Everywhere

After my commute home tonight I sat in the garden with my neighbors for a bit and we listened to the birds sing. A large bluebird flew into the apple tree, followed by a tiny, bright hummingbird.

The sun fell and I got a call from my eldest son. He's working on his PhD down in Pasadena; and called me while walking home from his lab.

There, like here, it was a mild spring evening.

As we talked I remembered him as a little boy, with a thatch of bright yellow hair and brilliant blue eyes. He was always smiling.

From an early age, he was quite clearly athletic, so we played baseball, as fathers and sons do in this country.

As he approached the age to qualify for Little League, I bought him a bat, glove and hardball and took him to a nearby park to practice.

The very first ground ball I hit took one skip and smashed him in the nose.

Nice work, Dad!

He laughed it off, despite the blood and the shock, and turned into quite the baseball player.

I lived in San Francisco and he lived in Mill Valley with his Mom, but I never missed a baseball game of his. Time after time, I would leave my jacket on the back of my chair at whatever office where I had a job, and race across the Golden Gate Bridge to attend his late-afternoon games.

He turned into a fine shortstop but also a terrific hitter, with speed and power. Most of his teams were good; one of them, during his best season, won 18 straight games, losing only in the city championship final.

That season, earlier in the playoffs, he hit a grand-slam home run over the fence and out of the park.

That was 18 years ago this spring.

They grow up fast, our kids. Pretty soon, they've moved on, sometimes quite far away, as he has.

The memories linger. Somewhere I have a framed copy of a newspaper article mentioning his exploits that wonderful season. I was always his loudest fan, of course, and was sorta disappointed when he decided to cut his sports "career" short.

But, as it turns out, he made all the right choices, and I couldn't be prouder of him than I am. A neuroscientist. Also, a softball coach of his lab's team. And a loyal son.

They don't make them any better than Peter.