7 Comments
User's avatar
Sarah3000's avatar

Hi Norm,

I only know the basics about baseball- That is involves a bat and a ball, a pitcher and a hitter, and three bases with 9 innings. That's about it.

But, I love the green grass as well. I noticed how green the grass was in the park I walk in near my house. Spring has finally arrived!

I love to garden, so I am happy to see Spring. It means my plants are starting to wake up and bud. The daffodils are blooming and the bushes and trees are starting to sprout leaves. I never met a flower I didn't love. I will be getting my garden ready for new plants in the next couple of weeks. I find gardening to be great exercise and cathartic. All the beautiful colors when the garden is in full bloom. It makes me happy to come home and see my front garden.

I hope your favorite team has an awesome season. Enjoy the view from the bleachers or the couch.

Expand full comment
Norm's avatar

Thank you, Sarah. When I go to a ballgame, my synapses still tingle at my first glimpse of the beautiful green grass, even after all these years.

My wife is the gardener in our family. She loves digging in the dirt and nurturing the little plants. I think she enjoys the process at least as much as the end result. She comes by it naturally. Her mom’s family were all farmers going back many generations. I tell her it’s in her genes.

When your garden is in full bloom, it must be a wonderful place to decompress a bit after a long day at work, or after hearing the news of the day. Hope you have lots of beautiful flowers this year.

Expand full comment
Sarah3000's avatar

Thanks Norm,

I also like digging in the dirt. That's the part that's cathartic.

Given the current situation with food prices, I have also decided to do some sustenance planting. Your wife would be the perfect person to talk to. I plan on planting fruits, vegetables, and nuts this year to help curb some of my grocery costs. Although, it can be pricey setting up a garden from scratch. The cost of top soil, plants, and fertilizer add up really quickly.

Take care,

Sarah

Expand full comment
Norm's avatar

I know for a fact, Sarah, that my wife finds puttering around in the backyard to be therapeutic. And, she would love to have a traditional vegetable garden out back, and a flower garden out front. But, we live where it is dry and hot most of the year. So, she has made the best of it and has turned our barren, dusty backyard into a desert oasis filled with succulents, cacti, and drought tolerant bushes and trees. She also has a few hardy rose bushes in pots she nurses through the bloody hot summers. I help a little bit, but I’m really not much of a gardener. Mostly I am the head hole-digger, raker, tree-pruner, and general cleaner-upper. That’s okay, those jobs need doing, too. 🙂

Expand full comment
Sarah3000's avatar

I sounds like she is making the most of the environment you live in. The great thing is there are plants can survive most regions. I'm sure you're a great helper. I have to do all the clean up stuff as well. It would definitely be nice to have some help.

Glad you two have a system to get everything done.

Expand full comment
Kate Cassidy's avatar

This is was fun, Norm, not to forget "timely". I loved Leo. I grew up watching the Cubbies, and Leo was the most colorful person on the team! I watched just to see what extraordinary thing he would do, or more specifically 'say' when he lost his mind. Kicking a base was a good one, or throwing just about anything on the field out of the dugout. He was like a cartoon in full color and animation! I think they quit screaming into each other's faces when too many umps were eating garlic sandwiches at lunchtime. Ugh! That would back off even Leo...and that was probably their secret plot.

I so agree on pitchers just trying to throw each pitch harder, especially when the crowd could see the MPH on the scoreboard to screetch at each 100+ toss. Lots of good pitchers were lost to early unnecessary season ending surgeries.

I remember the gum with the BB cards. It was flattened between the cardboard cards and tasted just like cardboard. Nasty and boring, however, it was coated in a small amount of sugar so I chewed it and spent many days in dentist's offices as a youngster due to the various cavities that bubble gum afforded me.

I loved going to the Cub's games, though very few. The best part was sharing a beer that was passed down the aisle occasionally...well, quite often, actually, as in Chicago the fans felt they were at a family picnic and everyone shared each other's beer as they were passed down the isle. It was a tradition. I was anywhere from 10 to 16 years old during those good old days of Pabst Blue Ribbon.

And who needs a DH anyway? I always wondered who those guys were when they got in the batter's box, as in "Daddy, who is that guy???"

Thanks for the memories...and the fact that I can still remember!

Expand full comment
Norm's avatar

Thanks, as always, for reading my stuff, Kate. I have a Cubs memory from my childhood. We went to the last game at Forbes Field before they opened Three Rivers Stadium. It was a doubleheader with the Cubs. The Pirates won both games, 3-2 and 4-1. We were sitting in the right field stands and around the 6th inning of Game 2, we started to hear pounding noises. People were breaking the wooden seats apart to take home a souvenir from the old ballpark. After the game was over, we saw people dragging seats down the street. Some were carrying numbers from the old fashioned scoreboard. Fans swarmed the field taking anything they could. It was a wild scene. We didn’t take anything. My pops wasn't onboard with taking stuff that did not belong to us.

Expand full comment