Sammy, Tammy, and Me

"All right. I've got two folding chairs in the back of my SUV. Let's sit out in that little clearing like gentlemen and I'll tell you everything you ought to know."

We shared a thermos jug of Dolly's lemonade as we sat and talked. By the time we got around to the "sermon on the amount" I had a good idea of what I'd have to do to have a cabin and outbuilding. As usual, the price of the land was almost incidental. I'd be looking at an outlay of seventy thousand to develop it as I'd want to, and I could visualize what would be where, and what it would all look like.

We went back to town, and Herbert dropped me off at the motel. I'd asked him to check with his bank on availability of construction loans on a weekend getaway cabin, and also on a year-around residence, and a few other things that he could find out easily for me. He promised to have answers when he picked me up in the morning at nine.

I showered and slipped into some lightweight casual clothes, killing time until Tammy would be home from work. I called her at five thirty, and she picked up right away. "I knew you'd call me. What have you found?"

"Nothing that we could do anything with right away. A place with a cabin that's falling apart, and a piece of land that might have some possibilities, but it doesn't even have the trees cleared off. If we wanted to build there, it'd take over a year before we'd have a place to spend the night."

"When you say the land has possibilities, what do you mean?"

"I think there's a spot that's suitable for putting a cabin on. The place is all trees, but there's a nice view looking out toward the road. It's secluded, nobody around where you'd see their houses, just us and the bears. If we put a deck on the back, you could sunbathe in the nude, and the only thing you'd have to worry about is having me come along and ravage you."

"What's the neighborhood like?"

"As far as I could figure out, there isn't any. It's about a dozen miles to town, where you could get a loaf of bread and a case of beer. If we were to go there for a weekend, we'd probably want to take our supplies with us."

"But no neighbors nearby? Nobody to snoop around and figure out what we're up to?"

"Not that I saw. But don't worry, before I get serious about any of these places, you can come along and look around for yourself. In fact, the next time I come up here I'll bring you with me. I want you to see what this little town is like, and how it feels to be up above the smog layer and breathe the fresh air of the pine forest."

"What is there to do up there? Is there any place where we could go swimming? Any cultural activities like Saturday night stock car races? Can you rent horses anywhere and go riding? Any place like a saloon where they have musicians on the weekend? Bowling? Oh, how's the TV reception? Can you get a good signal on a cell phone? How much rain do they get?"

"You've got the questions, all right. I don't have the answers, but you can ask the people up here and find out what it's all about. But don't expect to find a place where you can get away from the big city, that'll have all the things that a big city has."

"I understand, but I have the feeling that we could get to a place where it's peaceful and quiet and restful, and after the dishes are done there's not a thing to do except sit and watch the trees grow."

"Tell you what I'll do. Can you take a Friday and Monday off from work so we'll have a four day weekend?"

"I guess so, unless one of the girls is on vacation. If you pick a weekend, I'll see if we can do it. What've you got in mind?"

"There's a lodge up here, pretty nice place, where people come for vacations. I can see about getting a reservation for a long weekend, and we'll come up here and you can get a feel for the place. Maybe in the future we'd be better off reserving a week there now and then, instead of owning a cabin, with all the expenses that go along with maintaining our own little getaway place. I can go over there tomorrow and phone you at work so we can see if we could put the dates together. How does that sound to you?"

"Good idea. Then I can look around and talk with people and get an idea of what life is like up there."

* * * * * *

The third property didn't excite me at all. When I left Herbert it was with the understanding that he would keep his ear to the ground, and in the meantime I'd be thinking about the sort of deal that the second place represented. I let him know that I was thinking that maybe the lodge would be our path of least resistance, and he said that if so he'd appreciate our business there. He seems to have a piece of everything around the town!

Then I went over to the lodge and talked with the people there about long weekends. I gave Tammy two possible weekends, and went into their dining room for lunch. I was on my second cup of coffee when she called back, and fifteen minutes later our reservation was all made and paid for.

I still hated to leave the mountains behind. I drove slowly toward home, until I got onto the main north-south interstate that seemed to move at the speed of light. I kicked it up to the speed limit as a matter of survival, to avoid getting squished to a pulp by the eighteen wheelers.

I arrived at home after the supper dishes had been washed and the kitchen cleaned up. Tammy opened some refrigerator containers and performed a few feats of domestic magic, and I had a whole supper, which I took into the living room to eat. Sam came in, and we had a spirited conversation about my trip to the north country. That led to a more general conversation, and the subject of Sam's love life came up.

"Unk, between you talking to Dave that night and the conversations I've had with the wives, I think that something good is happening. The guys are cooling off on that softball league they were thinking about. It's for fanatical athletes, guys who have a need to win no matter what, to prove that they aren't getting old. They're so serious about it that nothing else in their lives matters. But there's another league starting up that plays only one game a week, on Friday nights, and the teams are mixed, half men and half women on each team. The question is whether the guys would be content to play with women, and do it just for fun instead of serous competition."

"What's being done to answer that question?"

"Tonight they're supposed to be meeting at Todd's house to talk it over and reach a decision. Todd is the oldest of the guys. His wife is Sarah. They're both very nice, and I don't get the feeling that they're letting this sports thing tear their marriage apart."

"Why don't you go over there for the meeting?" I asked.

"You mean, just barge in uninvited?"

"How about calling Sarah and getting her to invite you? It's her house too."

"You're right. Good idea." She went out to get her phone.

* * * * * *

Getting ready for bed, I asked Tammy about her interests in sports. "I played a bunch of different sports, to see what they felt like. Soccer first. All that constant running will keep you in shape, but I didn't like it much. It's hard to get good with that ball. It's so heavy, and it never did what I wanted it to. Like when you're supposed to overrun it and kick it backwards to a teammate. Well, it never went where I wanted it to. You're not even looking at the ball, but you're supposed to know just where to kick it. I did sorta like to running into people, though. I bet I would've made a good running back in football."

"What about softball?"

"I was pretty good at that. That fat ball is just too big for a lot of people to handle, but I have long fingers and I got pretty good at controlling it. A lot of girls were softball nuts, and there was no way I could make varsity in high school. And in college! Every girl you see out there playing college softball, whether they're at huge universities or small colleges, has been recruited after at least two winning years of high school varsity. The chick you see in right field, who might never touch the ball the whole game, has been a star in high school, carrying her whole team. I went for tryouts and never even made it through the whole session. Another thing is the pitching. Those pitchers got that ball out there so fast, and placed it exactly where they wanted it to go. There's a popular misconception that a softball is easier to hit than a hardball, but if you do the arithmetic you'll see that a hardball going 95 miles an hour and a softball going 60, on a smaller diamond, both get from the pitcher to the batter in half a second. Add to that the fact that the softball is coming up at you instead of down from a pitcher's mound, there's very little chance of getting a base hit. And it scrambles your brain. If you want to feel stupid, try swinging a bat at a ball that's so big you'd think nobody could miss it, but you never get the bat on it once in the whole game.

"Of course, the slow pitch that they use in the mixed leagues is totally different. The ball is coming down toward the catcher, and it's all in your timing. So you can go up there in practice and swing at a few with somebody coaching from the side, watching how you're missing it. Take half a dozen swings, and your coach can tell you whether to go for a lighter bat to speed up your swing, or a heavier one to slow it down. After that you can count on at least one base hit in every game you play. But if you don't get the right bat, you can swing at that thing all day and never hit even a foul ball."

"What about this team that Sam's talking about? If they come up short would you like to play?"

"Oh, I don't like to butt into stuff that Sam's doing, especially with Dave being involved. Those two are so serious, trying to live normal lives while they romance each other, and I don't want to get mixed up in that. Now if Sam were to ask me, I'd play, and I'm sure I wouldn't embarrass either one of you. But unless she comes to me, it's strictly hands off. I don't mess around with anybody's chance at wedding bells."

Next morning I had toast and coffee ready when Sam came out to the kitchen.

"Oh, thanks, Unk. I need the caffeine this morning. Late night last night."

"How'd it turn out?"

"One of the guys was against it and another one on the fence, but we talked and talked and finally they agreed to go for the mixed league. Todd is going to register us this afternoon."

"Us?"

"Yeah. Dave figured if I was interested enough to come to the meeting, I ought to play."

"Do you like softball?"

"I have no idea. I was a runner, cross country mostly, and the quarter mile when I was younger, before everything got to be metric. Just never got involved in sports that have balls in them."

"Can you hit?"

"Well, I can swing a bat. We'll just have to see if it smashes into anything round."

* * * * * *

The next day I went to check out softball stuff at a sporting goods store. I didn't buy anything, just looked and noted the price range on the bats and balls and gloves. When Tammy came home that night I asked her if we could get some stuff so she could coach Sam, especially at hitting, and some of the fundamentals of fielding. When Sam came in we talked with her about it.

"I didn't know there was that much technique to it. Don't you just sort of hold your hand out there and the ball plops into it?"

"Sam, I don't want you to get embarrassed out there, and I know you don't want to embarrass Dave, especially after you took enough interest in this league to go out last night and talk his friends into it.

"Yeah, I see what you mean. I sorta put myself on the spot. So what should we do?"

"Let's go to a store and buy some stuff, so Tammy can coach you. We'll get a couple of balls, and a glove for each of us, and you can try out some bats to find one that feels good when you swing it. And we'll get a rule book. It's all on me, in the interest of your marital bliss."

"Marital? Aren't you rushing things a little, Unk? Trying to get rid of me?"

"No, but I want you to have a lifetime of happiness, that's all."

The thing I wish I had a picture of, was Sam's face when I put a softball into her hand. She looked at it, tried to get a grip on it, rolled it gently from her right hand to her left, and then back again. She didn't utter a word, but her face said it all, and the message was "What the hell have I gotten myself into?" Finally she handed it back to me and asked, "Don't they have any smaller ones?"

I held her hand out, palm up, and laid the ball gently onto the palm. Then I wrapped her fingers up around it. "Now as I turn your hand over, grip the ball so it doesn't fall on the floor." She did that all right. I turned her hand back to the palm up position. "Now try to work the ball up off your palm, so that it's just held by your fingers. That's the grip you need when you're getting ready to throw it. You need to feel that you have control of the ball."

"Maybe if I'd played with these things when I was a kid this would feel better. I can hold onto it all right, but doing anything creative with it seems impossible."

"Well, the answer to that is practice. When we get home we'll fool around with it a little and you'll start to get a feel for it. Tonight you ought to file your nails a little shorter, so you can exert pressure with your fingertips without tearing your nails off. Let's look at gloves."

I handed her a glove and she put it on, but couldn't get all her fingers into it. We fumbled with it and she finally got it on. I put one on my hand and opened and closed it so she could see the action of the hinge. "Okay, now here comes the ball and you've got to catch it. The glove has to be open, but not out flat. It has to be like a funnel, so that the ball goes down into the bottom of the hinge, to that part they call the basket." I held the ball and put it into the glove, first centered, and then out toward her fingertips. "Now the glove won't do all the catching for you. That's where your fingers come into play. As soon as the ball is in the glove, curve your fingers to guide it in, and then close the glove over it so it can't get away from you." She tried that a bit. "Now reach into the glove with your right hand to get the ball out and control it with your fingers." That was going to take a little work. "Okay, you're on your way to being a softball player. Let's try some bats."

I let Tammy handle the bat selection. She showed Sam how to wrap her fingers around the bat, and to my surprise Sam showed a natural, level swing. Tammy picked out a light bat that Sam could whip around fast, then one that was about as heavy as she could handle, and finally one that was in the middle. It reminded me of the story of the three bears, but I didn't want to cast Sam into the role of Goldilocks because she was nowhere near ready to laugh at herself.

We wound up with so much stuff that I had to get a duffel bag to carry it all. On the way to the cashier I picked up an extra ball. That night I did a very neat job of marking "SAM" on it in big black block letters with a Sharpie. The Sharpie ink penetrates well into anything porous, and I knew it would soak into the leather overnight and would last forever. In the morning I had English muffins ready for the girls, and that ball was sitting in the center of Sam's plate.

"Hey, what's this?"

"Don't eat that. Stick it in your purse and take it with you. Keep it on your desk. When you're on a phone call, hold it in your right hand and wiggle it back and forth with your fingertips. Pick it up and set it down while your mind is on other things. In other words, get so accustomed to that ball that it starts to feel like a part of you. Do that for a week and you may get so attached to it that you'll wonder how you lived without it."

* * * * * *

What got me excited about the shaping of Sam the Softball Star, was that she seemed like a natural batter. I was thinking that she could be used as a pinch hitter, especially with her running speed. Tammy took her to the park near home several times after work, and I followed at a distance and found a spot where I wasn't conspicuous but had a clear view of the batting practice. There was no mistaking it, this girl could hit! I stopped at the store next day and picked up some more balls, so Tammy could keep up the pace. Then I played the outfield, collecting balls and tossing them back to Tammy. For my next trick I brought out three paper plates, so I could pace off the distances in the grassy field and mark the pitcher's circle, home plate, and first base. With that done, every time Sam hit the ball, she could run to first base, with me timing her on a stopwatch. It was easy to see why she had been a good runner in school - she had a quick start, kept her body low and gradually came up during the first three or four steps, and ran with no wasted motion, straight and level, elbows in tight as she pumped her arms with each step.

After Sam's power at the plate was polished by practice, I suggested that she invite Dave to supper, and let him coach her on fielding and throwing. That worked out well. He was eager to get involved, and his attention to detail made him a good coach. The session started with batting practice. Dave was naturally a laid back guy, but when he saw what Sam could do with a bat and how fast she was on the baseline, he looked like a young kid on Christmas morning. Then he started in on fielding, beginning with his rule number one, "Never catch the ball with your face." With Tammy tossing the balls out, Sam learned to smother a ground ball and catch a fly. Dave stressed the importance of getting the ball into play as fast as possible, and every catch Sam made was followed immediately with a called throw to Tammy or me. I thought that throwing would be Sam's biggest challenge, with her small hands, but it turned out that her real problem was getting the ball out of her glove. I was letting Dave do the coaching, so I didn't comment on it, but it was definitely frustrating Sam and she was getting embarrassed. Next morning I was only mildly surprised to see that she was going to work with not just her ball, but her glove as well. I knew how she'd be spending her breaks.

Dave came to softball practice and supper two or three nights a week after that, and as the season approached it was obvious that Dave and Tammy were very good players, and Sam was average and getting better. The best sign was that they were able to relax and enjoy the game, mostly because of all those hours of practice.

* * * * * *

The long weekend we'd reserved at the lodge in the mountains came up. I told Sam where we'd be and gave her the lodge's phone number, just in case our cell phones were out of range of a tower. Then, before sunrise on Friday, Tammy and I were out of there. We drove to the upper level of the state, enjoying the view as the rising sun showed it off in glorious shades of orange and gold. At a trailhead along the way we parked and walked for fifteen minutes in the pine forest, enjoying the clean air and the quiet. Nothing like the city, in any way.

The lodge itself was another beautiful sight. Built of logs, it was wide and low, obviously substantial but totally different from the stone and concrete hotels that dotted the landscape where we'd just come from. The people were friendly I had our baggage taken to our room while we walked around the main building, and Tammy went into the gift shop while I checked out the dining room. Then we walked to our room and unpacked. Tammy closed her empty suitcase and looked at me. "Now what?"

"Now we relax. Try it. Maybe you'll like it." I walked over to the bed and turned back the covers. I lay down on it and said, "Something's the matter with this bed."

"What's wrong?"

"There's nobody in it with me." Tammy kicked off her shoes and lay down by my left side. I was tempted to grab her shoulder and wrestle her over onto me, but instead I just put my hand gently over hers. We lay there, fully dressed, not moving a muscle.