P = PITTSBURGH PIRATES They don't call 'em "the boys of summer" for nothin! Summer is baseball season.
I spent many a summer in the field playing catch, our whiffleball version of home run derby and the grand game of "21" where points were won based on catching a line drive (7) a pop-up (5) grounder (3) and picking up a ball that was hit out of reach (1). As the title suggests, the first person to 21 (note: one lost points and could go into the negative numbers for missing any ball) would go and bat.
Of course playing the game one envisoned big league heroes. In my childhood the Pirates were winners (please no commentary on "Geez, how long ago was that???"). When we gathered to play the grand ol' game we stepped to the plate, picked up a bat and did the Willie Stargell windmill or the Dave Parker coil; we chewed wads of bubble gum, adjusted our caps, donned wristbands and spit.
Going to a game at the big league park was a grand moment. We saved "Town Talk" bread wrappers to earn free tickets.
There is a magic in taking a kid to his or her first professional baseball game. As a small boy attending his first night game at Three Rivers stadium commented, "Wow! The darkness doesn't go down that far."
Q = QUENCH
It must be the meeting of an evident need, the care involved and the sounds and sights of watering plants that makes quenching the earth to provide refreshemnt for dry and droopy plants such a meditative practice.
R = RIDES In summer it's not just on Sundays that one takes a drive. The openness of the season lends itself to road trips and country drives. When I would drive my mother to "Ambrose Farmer's Market" to get her desired cantalopes (see letter C) and a couple dozen corn and some cabbage, we always went "the long way" through the country, beside the creek, up the hills and close to the fields....it wasn't just the produce we were after.....
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