Backyard Memories

Throwing the football around (and over) my parents house with some family members this summer really brought me back to some special childhood times I've had in the backyard. First, I feel as if I should apologize to my parents for all the destruction we caused in the yard. I am sure they saw most of the plants that they meticulously planted from seed, get trampled on by one of us sliding into "third base" or by an errant pass thrown with too much zip on it. Not to mention the times we have damaged the fence or broken the gate (it wasn't me, I swear). What can I say now except for "Can I go out and play again?


I had hours of fun throwing the baseball off the cement base of the house to practice fielding grounders. To be as good as Willie Randolph you had to practice, practice, practice you know. Unfortunately my aim was not very good as I proceeded to break most of bottom shingles off the house with my throws. I'm sure my Pop was thrilled.

Us neighborhood kids had some epic wiffle ball games there. It was no holds barred when we played. You would think that playing with a wiffle ball and bat you we safe from breaking things and each other. Think again. Getting hit with a WF bat hurts like the dickens and did you ever get your finger caught in the ball. Everything STOPS! to surgically remove your pinched finger. But you did run around with the ball dangling from your finger to show it joyfully to everyone playing how you caught it.The yard definitely took it hard during those games. Fences were ran into, precious flower blooms were ripped from their stems in order to stay on base and moms new mulching jobs provided some tough footing during those sky high pop ups.
Hey Dad, muchas gracias for mowing the field (lawn), we were sliding an extra two or three feet just because of that.


I can't remember how this game came to be in the yard but it was fantastic.It's tough to describe, I'm sure may have been a tennis device for practice. The tennis ball was attached to a cord and it spun up and down along the metal screw top. Anyone? Help with a name? I told you it was tough to describe.Boy oh boy did we practice, we practiced so hard on that thing we broke the wire the ball was attached to. Lots of frustration was taken out on that poor thing. I'm sure it was probably happy to die.

Our parents must have really thought us kids were nuts. We would have relay races between the neighbors four yards. We'd have to navigate six fences, four gates one or two dogs, cars in driveways, Damn.. we'd be running across lawns, flower beds (good short cuts), clothes lines, sprinklers and sunbathers. That is when I got most use of my "stop watch" option on my watch (that was a quick shout out to my Facebook friends). I even used my pops old hand held stop watch at the time. Gotta get me one of those again. I got some nephews and nieces who are just like we used to be and would do anything to get timed.


there's Mom's whistle, the sportsfreaks got to go.