In The Middle

I didn't see this coming -- and oftentimes that's when things are best.

Every year on the first day of school, I struggle to deal with the fact that my oldest son is getting older.

I love him so much. We do everything together. I just never want that to end.

In the past 11 years, I've realized that it wasn't anything to worry about. He might have depended on me less, but he hasn't grown away from me -- at least not yet.

Sure, he doesn't go and do the things that I can only do if I have a kid with me. It usually just results in, "That's a bummer."

I wouldn't necessarily change my pattern of lamentations; they gave me real emotional moments that as I get older become less and less ... new. They were the kind that are marked with snapshots in my mind, images of him strolling away with his Darth Vader bookbag into kindergarten, music that brings me to that blend of melancholy and (would you call it?) pride.

The feeling of helplessness in the relentless march of time was always softened by the fact that the boys go to school with their mom, where she teaches. They were always in physical reach of one of their parents. And it helps that my younger son is always three years younger, though unfortunately for him he has to find a way to do something new that we've never seen.

---

So, I would expect that when Asa started middle school this week, I would be lamenting once again.

However, I've just felt this immense happiness.

There's still that part of me that wants to have him back to when my back problems forced me to lay on the floor for three days while he stood over me -- about 1 year old so so -- in a his light-blue onesie pajamas.

(I cared for him from his perspective - actually from a lower perspective as he towered over me, the drool dripping down from his overbite smile. He looked so tall, like a farcical giant-monster action movie).

My middle school years were very difficult. I went to three middle schools. I never made friends. I thought I was a loser, baby -- and when you do that, you kind of become one.

Asa couldn't sleep the night before. And he does this thing where he coughs violently when he's nervous (the worst was during his first flight, to Disney World). The cough never really surfaced as I dropped him off on his first day.

Only one of a number of surprises, which seem so large to me, though probably so banal to others (yeah, this one's more for me).

---

Last fall, Asa left a baseball team that he loved.

It wasn't working out from my perspective. The team wasn't very good, but I also thought that the kids he was surrounded by didn't work hard enough, didn't care as much as he did, and they didn't have much in common with him.

However, he loved his coach -- a friend of mine and one of the few men in this world who acts the part by putting children first, oftentimes to the detriment of his chances for winning and a reputation among the insecure coaches who define themselves through the success of their players.

To say Asa left the team is to say that I made him leave the team.

We went to another team where a group of guys were going to take it more seriously. It was with kids he had played recreation ball with for 5+ years, they were the All-Star team last year.

It seemed to be a good decision at the time -- and not the worst one.

But those guys lost their way, and my son could sense it from the beginning.

He never had the same love for them that he did for his previous coach.

This guy claimed Asa as his player even after he left -- giving him advice, rooting for him to succeed while simultaneously hoping he wouldn't pitch against him.

And I let him claim him - just not for his team.

Children's sports can be so complicated.

---

Now, Asa plays for yet another team -- except this time, I allowed him to pick.

Last month, I got a text at the beach from a coach I'd never met, and Asa got picked up as a guest player for a team called the Mustangs during an AAU nationals tournament.

We showed up straight from the beach 4 1/2 hours away. His grandparents brought his clothes to the ball park. He had about 10 minutes before they put him on the mound and told him go at it.

We won 5-1 and eventually won a division in the tournament (I never knew they gave out championship rings to children).

Asa immediately fell in love with the team.

They're from a rural area about 25 minutes south of Greenville.

Their country accents and demeanor remind him of his family back in small-town Winnsboro. He said they mostly remind him of his great-Grandma, and that's always a good thing.

The coaches believed him. And they weren't corporate.

Instead of chastising him for it, they liked his "fire" when he ran off the mound before the umpire called a third strike. There's a fine line there, but maybe he mirrors me when I err on the side of passion, at least for children.

He tried out, won a spot and now is excited to play with a new group of kids he has no history with.

It's a cliche that sports can be a metaphor for life. In this case, it's not a metaphor but more of another manifestation.

There's a running theme here, and I'm learning a new lesson -- kind of the easy way, this time.

---

Because Asa went to school with his mom, he didn't go to school with the children in his neighborhood (in fact an elementary school is so close to our house that in the winter when there's an ice storm we walk over to the hill above the playgrounds and sled).

This made him a bit of a novelty. His connection with his friends was connected solely to their exploits in the neighborhood. I suppose I'll never exactly what that means socially.

Likewise, he started tee ball at age 5 in a league across town.

I missed the sign-up for the closer league -- so for five years he played over in Mauldin with, again, a group of kids he neither went to school with nor who lived near him.

They were the children he played baseball with when they left rec ball for these more-serious tournament teams. They were the social components for his sports exploits.

When the time came to consider middle school, we didn't want him to go to school in our zone. There's just a little less ... curiousity ... in Hillcrest.

So we decided we'd asked for special permission to go to Mauldin schools (the zone my wife grew up in).

This would mean a number of things.

For the first time, I would be his sole means of transportation to school (you can't take a school bus for a school outside your zone).

He'd be going to school with no children he went to elementary school with. Nor would he go to school with children from his neighborhood. He would know about 10 people, all who know him through sports.

Not the worst thing ... but what would it mean?

---

As I drove him to middle school, I felt a peace about me.

I knew we made the right decision on school choice. We learned that when we experienced the culture at orientation.

But how would he adjust? There's a part of me, I think, that knew he was used to being different in the social fabric of things. Not weird, but maybe just novel.

By chance, we ended up in the school car line with one of his best baseball friends -- who's also joining him on the new team he picked and who happens to be a 7th grader almost as big as me. It couldn't hurt to walk into a new school with a guy like that.

I watched them walk in together. I took a mental snapshot that I will never forget.

I waited impatiently for that afternoon, the verdict.

Who would he end up having classes with? Would he feel like he fit in? Would he like school?

When he called, I heard the words I wanted to hear, "I love school."

His best friend from his first baseball team -- the one I guided him into leaving -- had all but two classes with him. They saved spots for each other, breathlessly told their parents of the wonderful news as soon as they could.

He had missed that kid. That kid was a reason he didn't want to leave.

He also made a new friend -- one who doesn't play baseball.

Asa practiced at home on his combination lock for hours. He timed himself. He wanted to be the kid who knew how to unlock his locker. The teachers love him too -- during the first days of middle school, they spend little time teaching subjects other than how to open your locker.

The third day, on Friday, I decided to leave work early and pick him up from school.

It didn't take long, but he asked me if I was taking him to the back-to-school dance later.

I didn't even know they did those anymore. I certainly didn't think Asa would want to go, at least not that soon.

When I drove him back to school for the event, I gave him my Droid phone. I told him he could use it for a leg up to look cool. I figure he could use any help I could give him.

"Hold on, baby, I'll just friend you on Facebook now."

He later told me an 8th grader got arrested for spiking her Monster energy drink with alcohol.

For all my past worrying, I wasn't fazed. I just shrugged my shoulders -- "Well, make sure you don't do that."

He went to his first practice this weekend for his new team, 25 minutes away in a place that he had to ask me whether it was north or south of his hometown.

I grilled him with questions before I allowed him to make the decision to join that team.

He answered the right ones.

What about your friends you've played with for 5 years?

"Daddy, I want to try something new."

I wasn't sure, but I felt like it was time to let him choose.

Now, he goes to school with his old baseball friends but plays the sport with a whole new group of kids he's only met for the latter part of a tournament a month ago.

It's three separate cultures he gets to experience -- neighborhood, school, sports. All different sets of children who don't know the other groups.

I've always felt this to be true, from the moment I knew I would become a parent.

You have a certain amount of time that they are yours and yours only.

You have your shot to mold them into the adult they will be.

And it's a one-shot deal. You can't go back.

I've not made these decisions knowing what will happen. I've tried to do what I thought was right this whole time. I certainly failed in some respects, mostly when I try to control events before they have had a chance to manifest themselves.

And there's still teenage years to come.

But I have to say, right now, I think he's going to make it by OK.

Doublethink

The left side rests where it's right brain commands it.

The right side struggles .... commandeering vision, creating two images from one.

But, for left brains, it's not the time. The right has been given leave to do what it will.

For better or worse.

Asymmetrical.

Vowels

I read somewhere that when Justin Vernon of Bon Iver was recording his first album, the lyrics to his songs were formulated only after he had created the sound of the vowels that give structure to the words.

So they actually weren't words yet -- just another complement to the layer of sounds as a song develops.

The music is first.

Then, he determined which words sounded like the vowels and chose words most appropriate to what he was trying to "say."

The result was a subconscious expression from the same source that was the genesis of the song.
I'm not a musician, but it seems that this would expand the vocabulary of a songwriter (even though words would have to be selected within the confines of a certain form based on vowels -- not unlike writing a poem in haiku).

The musician is freer to select the words that will ultimately be printed as the lyrics to his song, because he knows his aim isn't to tell an entirely conscious story.

The lyrics then don't have to mean much of anything -- though if the point of the artist is to share his experience, even if it's just in explaining his experience to himself, the words will bear some resemblence.

The listener is free to hear the words he wants to hear, to interpret what he feels more than what he thinks.

And the artist, by nature of how he arrived at his creation, encourages this.

Music, dance, poetry, painting, photography ...

It's best when comes from a place you have to express instead of explain.

Writing can only take a person so far on the journey to enlightenment.

It's like a boat carrying you through seas that are too deep and vast to swim -- but if you want to truly know, you're going to have to take a plunge eventually and let what creates the words be your source.

Shapes

I see living things if I ever see anything in the clouds.

The plumes of atmosphere take infinite forms, smooth and fluid and textured.

I don't look into the clouds much, because I know I'm going to be staring into a reflection of myself.

The possibilities for imagining the beauty of the world are endless.

Try as I might, I don't.

The animals and personifications that emerge in the shades of pink and white are either dying or fighting to defend themselves or killing something.

I can't will myself into seeing what I want to see, or at least what I wish my mind would naturally summon.

Maybe one day I'll return to seeing what I saw as a child

Until then I'd rather just see nothing more than clouds.

P.S. Or what if I see a red cooler and a light blue beach body board on the other porch, looking to be having a conversation over cigarettes that looks like a love connection, and she looks like a Monsters Inc. character and he looks to be a mellow Power Ranger ...?

Traveling

For months and months I've been trying to distill an analogy to accurately describe it.

What is up with this phenomenon of kids baseball that they call "travel ball?"

This is where kids are yanked from their community recreational baseball leagues to form private AAU teams, which compete in regional weekend tournaments that are supposed to represent the "best of the best" in your metropolitan area.

Something has always felt a little ... empty ... about the whole thing.

I couldn't describe why. It's just felt that way.

But now I think -- with the Gamecocks back in the College World Series and agonizingly close to winning its second national championship in a row -- I've finally put it together.

---

Earlier this spring, I took the boys to see the defending National Champions.

There is a spirit within this. This is our school. We're loyal to our school because ... it's our school. We identify with a common purpose.

These college players are heroes to the kids, who take their hats and balls and game programs and line up in droves along the right field line after the games to beg for autographs or a picture.

The players are generally local -- coming from communities like Sumter, Greer, Mauldin, Florence. Ordinary places. Places that speak to the sport's ingrained culture in our state.

They're from places that any of these kids could be. And they picked this place.

The kids make little distinction between the college players' popularity and that of a Major League player.

But here's what's probably more important, and it's what provides these players the adoration and interest they enjoy: Their following is less about them and more about the institution they are representing.

They play a part of something much larger than themselves.

We as fans and alumni of the University of South Carolina don't necessarily care who they are in the end. Yet through our mutual connection with our larger institution, these guys become special to us.

We feel like we're in it with them. And our passion shines brightest upon whoever puts the jersey on.

---

I was tasked some months back to do the Opening Day story for thee local Class A professional baseball team, the Greenville Drive.

The "Drive." It's the corporate-driven branding designed to tie into the area's automotive industry. Not quite as compelling -- or risky -- a mascot as a Gamecock.

I was interviewing these guys and I'm getting the "Glad to make it out of spring training and make it on a minor league team" and "This is my chance to show that I belong at a higher level."

They didn't grow up wanting to play for the Greenville Drive. Who would? Some aren't even sure where this place is. They're here to prove to the Red Sox that they belong somewhere else.

I go to a minor league game ... I don't watch it. It's a sideshow, a party. There is no emotional connection. If the hometown team commits five errors and loses, I'll laugh at the circumstances of it all.

As I talk to these guys, I want a little more.

Opening Day. A beautiful multimillion-dollar park. This is a higher level to live your dream, right?

It is ... but they're hesitant.

Ask them more and you'll find they live their dreams more in the past.

I thought it would be interesting for them to tell me where they hail from.

These guys didn't go to college.

They were too good.

In baseball, if you're top-shelf talent, you generally skip college and head into a life of traveling on buses and playing in towns like Asheville and Charleston and Greenville.

High school as an identity? Maybe.

But what is it that speaks almost universally? I believe you find what you're looking in that most often when you ask people about their childhood.

What T-ball team did you play for? What was its name? Who are you truly representing today as your name is called for starting line-up?

One player, who grew up New Orleans -- the Lockport Recreation T-ball Tigers, for those keeping track -- talked about being recruited by LSU out of high school. A part of him admits a little regret in not going.

But the money's not there. They don't pay for you to play in college -- except maybe the scholarship -- but even those in college baseball oftentimes don't cover the full ride.

It's a conscious choice -- you're good enough to go to the minor leagues, but you know you're just going to ride a bus with the Everett Aquasox or the Savannah Sandnats.

You trade in the ping of aluminum bats for the crack of a wooden one.

But that distant prize that only a small percentage ever claim is always there - the Boston Red Sox. The Green Monster. Ted Williams and Roger Clemens and Pedro Martinez.

In college, you're adored by a base of true believers. The competition in terms of talent isn't as difficult (a minor league team is generally going to manhandle a college team) but the competition in spirit and purpose are.

All that to say ...

I heard a Gamecock baseball player interviewed by someone not long ago and they talked about this college team the Gamecocks were about to play and how it had a load of talent drafted by Major League Baseball.

How in the world could they ever stand up to such a challenge?

The player -- who wasn't good enough to get to the minor leagues but in the past four years has built his legacy as one of the university's greatest players of all time and now finds himself drafted to an MLB team -- made the comment, "We played against these types of players in high school, and we held our own."

That's when it hit me. I've got it figured out.

These Gamecock players -- and players for other baseball powerhouse colleges -- are rock stars.

But the truth is that, for the most part, you can bus the Myrtle Beach Pelicans in and just about any minor league team and they will beat those college boys.

There would be little joy in it for the pros -- because they've entered the realm where the joy has been sacrificed for professionalism.

And here is the parallel ...

College baseball is the rec league of 20 year olds.

Travel teams are the minor leagues of 10 year olds.

---

In kids recreation baseball, you represent your community -- a suburb, a town, a rural county.

It's come one, come all. There is no resume, just a minimal check for uniforms and umpires and property taxes to subsidize keeping up the fields.

The jerseys can simply have the name of your community, or maybe it mimics the Major League teams.

You spend five years in the league, often more, and over time you go out to the park and by the time your kid is 11, you know everybody.

Teams aren't allowed to stick together. You'll be playing against your friend who you won a championship with the year before.

The disparity in talent is pronounced. You can have a kid strike out 10 batters, then he reaches his pitch limit and another kid comes in and gives up 10 runs.

It's part of the chaos and comedy that make kids baseball so entertaining.

At the same time, as they develop, it begins to get frustrating.

A kid fields the ball at shortstop like a pro, but the 1st baseman can't ever catch it.

So parents pull their kids out and play "travel ball."

The tournaments are expensive. Parents have to pay admission. They are slickly produced.

The teams are finely tuned machines. There is no mercy -- relief might only come on the 10-run rule that leaves a losing team humiliated (yet, that's an outcome you accepted as part of the risk when you signed up).

They have fancy jerseys. And, interestingly, they have minor league sensibilities -- the Destroyers or the Dirt Devils or, in my son's case, the Sidewinders.

With a travel team, a coach has free reign not only over the name, but the players he picks.

They stay together -- yet you soon realize that the culture of winning can strain what would otherwise be normal relationships with your adult peers. And soon enough, the kids aren't together anymore.

In this area, a plush farm of nationally elite baseball talent, there has developed a neurotic urge for parents anxious to "keep up."

Parents talk about preparing their son to make the high school team and mention the dream of a college scholarship.

If you're playing rec, you're just not keeping up.

It becomes a status symbol --saying the word "my sons plays on a travel team."

I resisted my son joining this exclusive club.

I didn't want him to lose the joy of playing a sport he loves.

But with the exodus of talent, I soon realized that it wouldn't be much fun to effortlessly strike out the kid whose parents told him he had to play rec ball this year for the first time because he plays too many video games.

A year to this day, my son pitched a no-hitter for his 10-year-old All-Star team.

There was a lot of talk about it in our league, among parents and kids who've played together for half a decade.

It made the community newspaper.

But here's the thing: The only reason anybody cared is because what he did represented the community he played for.

Mauldin, a suburb of Greenville, vs. Dacusville, a rural mountain area near Clemson University.

If he had done this in some random, indistinguishable tournament that matters only to the people who paid their way into it, it would mean so much less.

And therein lies the distinction ...

What these college guys play for is what my son played for.

They're representing something larger than themselves.

And that's something to cherish.