Simple Times Playing With My Dad

My fondest memories.

I opened my eyes early one morning as the sun announced itself again to an awakening Rio de Janeiro. My father made fried eggs, which we ate quickly before walking to the beach, still empty and ready to be our playground. 

I waddled back and forth at full speed, my curly blond hair flowing through the wind, my progress slowed by the rising tide as I raced into my father’s outstretched arms. He chased me back and forth across the sand as adults do, shortening his stride so that I, fleeing and giggling, always remained a step ahead and set to win the race before he swooped down and scooped me up in both arms, spinning around and around as I screamed with delight. The horizon became the floor, the sky the ocean, everything spinning. 

When the tide claimed our chosen racetrack and older boys with soccer balls began to weave around us, we moved to quieter grounds to play my favorite game – Airplane. My father would lie on his back, pull his legs toward his chest and, raise his feet in the air. Eager to soar, I placed my small body against the perch and grabbed his hands. As he stretched out his legs, I soared higher, always balancing delicately above him, steady and true. I could fly.

Years later, during the hot evenings of Summer, my father and I played catch until sunset. We only had one good baseball glove, so my father wore a tattered one inherited from a friend that was too small for his hand. It didn’t matter to him. He was just happy to be with me, to share those waning moments of the day enjoying baseball, one of my youthful passions. My father would stand by the side of the house, and I back by our huge evergreen tree, the distance between us far enough for my dad to throw pop fly after pop fly for me to shag and rifle back to him, my steady teammate, who applied the tag to the imaginary base runner with a resounding thwap! that clearly signified the runner had never stood a chance. 

When I wanted to practice pitching, my father would use my glove, inscribed by Yankees legend Bucky Dent. Like any good catcher, he would squat dutifully by our back fence and slap the inside of the glove before showing me a perfect target in the strike zone. Not Nolan Ryan, not Steve Carlton, not Ron Guidry, no I stood on the mound, adjusting my cap and fingering the ball until I held the seams perfectly. The two of us exchanged signs, my father first putting down one finger, then two held to the left as I shook him off, calling for another pitch. The signs meant nothing, of course, but when there are two outs in the top of the ninth inning and you’re about to clinch the World Series at Yankee Stadium, everyone knows you give signs. Then I wound up and delivered the ball, my arm hurtling toward my dad with a snap as it rolled off my fingertips, whistled through the air, and landed perfectly in his motionless glove before he declared the obvious for those in the crowd who had not seen: “Steeeee-rike Three!”

As the seasons changed, we switched to football, with Joe Montana and my 49ers taking on Cleveland’s Jim Brown of my father’s youth. Each kickoff brought the unlikely-but-ever-so-hoped-for possibility of returning the kick for a touchdown in our backyard, the surest way to demoralize one’s opponent.

I wove backward and forward, left and right, then back again, hoping to cause my father to stumble and open before me a sea of grass on the way to the end zone, always followed by a celebratory dance. Usually, however, a quick tag was applied and collaboration became the order of the day, with deceptive receiver patterns; fakes to elude ominous, lumbering defenders; and diving catches for glory.

Occasionally, an overthrown pass would put the ball in the lake, so I would run inside to grab a rake with which to reel it in quickly. A few rolls in the grass and the water-logged ball was ready once again, this time with caked mud to soil our sweatshirts, a badge of honor earned on the gridiron. 

It eventually grew cold or dark or we were called in for dinner, each an imperative to play just a little bit longer.  

We kept playing on the cold, hard tundra when the lake was frozen and our fingers were too cold to feel the sting of the ball. 

A newer baseball glove since 1995.

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