I forgot how much fun a cleaning-the-garage-Saturday could be. Dad starts early in the morning -- blasting his country music. Of course I hardly do any of the work. Rather, I find "old" things and oogle over them. Some times it's pictures that we haven't seen for years and other times it's the softball bat dad bought me junior year of High School because I said I wanted to try out. Even though I never did, my ambition brought the family closer in ways we never expected...
I remember some Saturdays we would spend a good few hours at the park down the road playing catch and hitting. And it wasn't just me and dad. Taylor, Austin, and Katie would join and we would laugh and have such a great time. Dad always "worried" about hitting the ball too hard, hitting it into the forest that touched the park. We would indulge him and stand on the edge of the forest then jet forward in an attempt to catch the flying ball that only made it about half way to forest edge. He would run run run claiming a "HOMERUN!" Katie would only hit. Don't even bother asking her to catch or throw; it wasn't her thing. She fancied the swing where she cheered us all on. Taylor and Austin were good. They tried to out do dad every time. And though they came close, dad is still our farthest hitter and thrower. Maybe now things have changed...
Today was a whole different story. We didn't even make it to the park and we were missing half the gang. Katie was at color guard practice (follows after me!) and Taylor was preparing for Districts. So Austin and I did our best while dad cut off branches that he was sure needed to be "trimmed" off. Afterwards, he thought the tree looked a little bare on the left side (or right side or however you looked at it). Dad taught me how to catch again. That's how bad I had gotten. I was pretty okay in High School but things have changed since then. A lot apparently.
