Portrait of Xmastime as a Young Dreaming Idiot

I was always a dreamer when I was a kid. I mean even so much so that sometimes I’d rather dream about something than actually do it. So I’d fantasize about being a great baseball player, but I wouldn’t actually practice with my brother to get better. He’d hound me to play catch, practice hitting, whatever, I’d decline. Meanwhile, I’d slip outside and all of a sudden it’s the bottom of the 9th with 2 outs, bases loaded, down by 3 runs and guess who’s up? That’s right. In my mind, I could at least save myself from looking like an idiot by playing it cool. I’d wander outside, act like I was just moseying round the yard, taking it all in. But in my mind’s eye I had all the bases mapped out, home plate, the pitcher’s ugly face, and of course the thousands of people in the stands losing their minds. I’d grab a bat and walk up to “home plate”…then I’d look around, see that nobody was watching, and BAM!!! Game-winning grand slam, outta the park!! I did it!! I’m a hero!! So now of course I had to do my triumphant, the world loves me now home run trot. But, of course, I had to do it in a way that would not attract nobody’s attention. So I’d look around, then start easing towards first base, jogging slowly while pretending to be looking for something. Meanwhile, the crowd’s going crazy – cool dudes are wanting to hang out with me, and all the 11 year-old girls are falling in love with me. I make it to first base and stop, pretending I see something on the ground. I look around, see the coast is clear, and start moving towards second base, maybe this time loudly muttering “what the…” so it appears, should somebody spy me, that I have spotted something on the ground that needs my attention, as opposed to some idiot kid in the middle of his ridiculous home run trot. Anyways, of course by the time this charade ended it had been about 20 minutes.

Looking back now, I would think that all my “acting”, all my ridiculous effort trying to NOT appear to be running around bases, looked even more ridiculous than had I just torn off round the bases in the first place. Plus, it coulda been over with in about 20 seconds, as opposed to the quarter of an hour I’d take up being “clever”, strolling though the yard like an idiot. Years later, I found out that the whole time of course my family knew, my brother would see me during one of my performances and point it out and they’d watch me and have a laugh. I’m sure I looked completely retarded playing it cool. Ah well. Story of my life. And in the end, surprise, my brother became a lot better baseball player than me. I was too busy dreaming these ridiculous scenarios to actually get better. Same thing with basketball – couldn’t bother with drills/actual practice etc, I was always too busy playing with Jeff Lamp and Lee Raker and draining the game-winning shot to win the Final Four.

Fortunately or unfortunately I still got a bit of dreamer in me. Throw a ball at me right now and I’m right back there, stripping the ball from Len Bias and going in for two to win the game at the buzzer. Some parts of you as a child stay with you always, I reckon.