The summer sunsets are descending in a cloudless haze.
Barely clothed like the dry, barren hills they slip behind, a disparate aura surrounds them.
A brown glow of desolation obscures the lines that draw where each little thing is supposed to end and begin.
It radiates a something that almost feels like a nothing.
Almost.
It would set the world on fire.
If only it could.
Until something lasting comes to wash it all clean ...
I guess I want the Lakers to win tonight, even though I want the Celtics to win it all.
Why? Because it's another night I can sit on my porch with my pre-historic television struggling to pick up the ABC airwave signal all the way from across from the Carolina state line and the Blue Ridge mountains.
Ever so slightly, with most minimal shifts in the wind, the stark contrast of the green shamrock against the flamboyant Laker yellow and purple will shift to black and white.
That makes watching television a true interactive experience.
This year, like other early Junes before them, since NBC handed over the torch to ABC (and with its broadcast rights, a far weaker signal), the use of tin foil has been vital to the tradition.
For without the tin foil scrunched onto the anntena rabbit ears, it wouldn't look as good as it does nor feel as industrious an endeavor.
It feels like you're tapping into something natural (though it's not) and yet at the same time have created your own technology with each sheet of foil you tear and crumple.
But ... they're going digital in 2009.
Who could forget with all the reminders to the (old) folks who use this as their primary source of having the bejesus scared out of them by the 11 o'clock news.
And it's OK, kind of. The government is going to help the people who like how it's done now to buy the digital converters to keep their crappy televisions functioning.
But for me, I'm losing something, even if I were to upgrade my TV.
Gone will be the satisfaction of twisting some tin foil on the edge of a prehistoric anntena and feeling like I personally am responsible for bringing to the porch enclave the Celtics 24-point comeback in Game 4 or the Lakers stumbling there way from elimination in Game 5.
I could convert the TV, but the point isn't pick up a digital signal.
The point is to manipulate are far simpler code with the use of a simple household item.
I don't really like the Lakers, but I want at least another night of grilling some food, drinking some beer and sitting with my son as we scrunch the tin foil ever-tighter and ever-pointier.
A view that we earned, not bought.
It's almost like sneaking into a live game.
If it goes to a Game 7, maybe I'll celebrate and buy another box of tin foil.
That's what we all are.
Fingers and arms exploring what we can build or destroy, legs moving us around to do what it seems like we should do in the only we know how to get it done.
Breathing in and out some invisible gas that keeps this awkward, temporal collection of action together.
People.
Humans.
Always being cool.
Sounds like a religion.
"And, Bob, if you take a live look now at the line at the local gas station here this Memorial Day weekend you'll see the cost of a gallon of gas nearing $4 and causing some serious pain at the pump ..."
I swear, if I hear that phrase one more time ...
BOOM!
I'm sorry, did I break your concentration? You were saying something about ... "pain at the pump?"
Oh, you were finished. Well allow me to retort ...
... say "pain at the pump" again!
SAY "PAIN AT THE PUMP" AGAIN!
I dare you!
I DOUBLE dare you, MOTHERFUCKA!
SAY "PAIN AT THE PUMP" ONE MORE GODDAMN TIME! 
This is a new world we're heading into.
We don't know what this is, let alone what's it's going to be.
But I'm here with him, no matter what happens.
He's handed a #14 jersey with athletic tape over the name on the back, over the name of a kid who's out for the season after his dad accidentally hit him with a softball and sent him to the hospital with a fractured head.
I forgot the copy of my son's birth certificate. He can't play without it. I left it on my desk at work, 15-20 minutes away. I race to work and back.
He sits in the dugout -- the new kid who knows no one, playing in an elite USSSA league for 9 year olds, the youngest on the team, just turning 8 years old on April Fool's Day -- watching the opposing pitcher throwing flames into the catcher's mitt.
Just the day before, he learned he'd have the opportunity to face this daunting challenge -- thanks to a neighbor who believes in him enough to vouch for him and, unfortunately, thanks to a softball to the face.
Up until now, he's played coaches pitch. If it weren't for the fact that this team was a private squad in a league featuring a parade of 9-year-old all-stars from the rec leagues, he wouldn't be allowed to face a pitcher, because he's not old enough.
"Do you want to do this? Do you realize you might get hit by a pitch? It's a lot faster. There's going to be things you don't know how to do. You're not going to know any of the kids. I can't promise you that you won't make mistakes. But it'll all be OK."
"I want to do it, Daddy."
Up to bat: the Southern Spinners (a tip of the cap to the old, early 1900s textile league semi-pros of Upstate South Carolina; where Shoeless Joe cut his teeth).
Strike out. Strike out. Hit. Strike out.
He sits on the bench, the only kid in the dugout, as the rest of the team takes the field.
After giving up a couple of runs, the Spinners are back up to bat.
I barely am prepared for when he steps into the on-deck circle.
He fires off a few authoratative practice swings, acting more than being the part of a player who is about to face a live pitch for the first time in his life.
I put my head between my legs for a moment; not worried, so much, just doing something with my body to express the visceral nature of the moment.
He steps into the batter's box, the strip of athletic tape leaving him to be labeled "unknown."
"What's his name?" a parent in the stands asks me.
"Asa," I tell her. "A-S-A."
"OK, come on Asa!" she yells.
The kids yell out for him.
"Come on, Asan. You can do it, Asan."
He takes the first pitch.
"Strike!" the umpire exclaims.
He swings at the second pitch. A good cut. "Strike!"
The third comes, above his chin, and he swings.
"Strike three!"
He runs back to the dugout.
"That's all right," the parents yell. "That's all right, Asa."
The coaches tell him not to swing at anything above his hands.
The kids take the field. Again he sits on the bench, alone.
Another inning goes by. And again the kids take the field as he sits alone in the dugout.
I walk over to him, differently than usual. Not in the way I usually do, not when I coached him in basketball, with a steady dose of "Yeah, you think you're awesome, but ..."
Not tonight.
I walk over to the back of the dugout.
"Asa, I want you to know something. It doesn't matter if you hit the ball. Just look for a good pitch to hit. Just do what you do. I don't care if you hit the ball. Just know that I'm over here, and I'm here with you. I'm with you."
He nods his head.
Back into the on-deck circle. And back into the batter's box, nameless, to face what turns out to be one of the best pitchers the team has faced halfway through the season.
He swings at the first pitch. "Strike!"
He swings at the second. "Strike!"
I clasp my hands. Taking nothing for granted. A slight grin on my face, watching my little boy battle his way through something that I never could have done myself. I smile, because I know that just him standing in that box is enough.
Just him going down swinging is enough.
The third pitch ...
"Ping!"
Foul ball.
He got hold of it. He nicked it. Just barely. And he's still alive. Even if he strikes out again, he got hold of it.
He digs his feet back in. He's going down swinging.
The next pitch ...
The pitcher let this one go with a slight hitch ...
It's just a bit slower ...
"You can get this one, son ..."
"I think you can get this one, son ..."
And ...
"PING!"
No name. No fanfare. No expectations.
A single.
