Run, You Idiot, Run!

After third grade, everything changed. But during that year it was like a golden existence, a brief bubble in time where I was somebody. For that year, I was appreciated for what I could do, not what other people's expectations were.

The teacher was trying to read part of a book each day in front of the class. It wasn't going well. She wasn't holding the student's attention. So as an experiment, she let me try to read from it. I finished out the whole rest of the book for her. Pocahontas and Captain John Smith. I had them riveted.

That year, I was the room's student council representative. When we had lunch or snack, Diane Mainprize used to let me share her desk and seat. It was the year I met Dona Bow. And it was the year of one of the greatest miracles ever.

I loved baseball, but I could not play it. Hitting a ball demanded a level of hand/eye coordination I do not possess. To the best of my knowledge, I've only hit the ball once out of the infield. And it came during the spring of that golden year.

We had a big game against another classroom. I came up to bat, probably for the only time, because they did try to work around me as much as possible. As usual, the first swing or two, I miss badly. Usually, I would begin my swing about the time the ball was in the catcher's mitt.
But somehow, by some miracle, on my last swing, I connected with the ball big time. I watched it sail past the infield. I watched it soar into the outfield. I stood in awe as the outfielders tried to chase it down. I watched and watched, in open mouth wonder, all sound and sensation gone, until finally the shouts of those around me began to penetrate. "Run, you idiot, Run!"

Shaking the cobwebs away as fast as I could, I went dashing for first base, like a possessed locomotive, steaming my way in. I stepped on first and started charging to second. Well, by this time, the outfielders had managed to corral the ball and start to throw it back in. They shouted "Stop, you idiot, Stop!" , but there was no stopping this freight express from hell.

I raced to tag on Second, but I was greeted by a very happy Second Baseman, Who held the ball. That tagged me out.

There it was. The biggest moment I would ever have in the sport that I loved. And I still felt like I was coming up a loser.

That is, until the real miracle occurred. Another boy on our team, whose name has been tragically lost to me, came up to me and said, "You know, it's alright you can't play baseball well. I just wish I could read half as well as you can, You sure can tell good stories."

Yes, for that one amazing year, there was joy in Bearcatville. It was the one beautiful year when somebody could appreciate you for what you could do. Maybe you weren't an athlete. But you could read well. Maybe you weren't the best dressed. But you can share what you had. It was a year I'll never forget. It was a year I'd spend the rest of my life struggling to get back to.