Baseball. Take me out to the old ball game. One of my favorite games (baseball and golf are close together golf getting the slight edge). I was probably around 14 when I went to my first baseball game, at least that I remember. I really couldn’t have remembered how old I was until I googled when Joe Kennedy played for the Rays. I remember being there for the first game he played. He was the first left-handed pitcher to start for the Rays. Why I remember that he was the pitcher of the game……
Certain things stick with you and sometimes you can’t really explain it. I do know that my Dad took me and my stepbrother Kirk to the game. I also remember he bought us both devil rays duffle bags. I do know that was the only travel bag I used for the next 4 years until it was destroyed during a fire while I was in basic training. We keep things not really knowing why. I kept that bag and only used it for all those years. If you would have asked me at that time I would have said “that was the only bag I had” well that just wouldn’t have been true. Shoot, I could have just used my backpack. But I didn’t. I used that bag my Dad got me when we went to our first game together. And you could have asked me before I googled Joe Kennedy and I would have told you I was at the first Rays game in 1998, and I had told people that. But to me that was when the Rays started playing and when I would become a lifelong fan.
This is one of the reasons I want to take Auggie to baseball games. I know the memories that can be made, it is one of my favorites. Auggie received a free rays lunch box when we went to one of the games and I got to watch him take that lunch box to school for over a year. It is a little wore out now but It still sits in our pantry and every time I see it, I remember the first game my dad took me to and the continuation of the tradition because that was the first game my Dad, his Papa took him to. Auggie uses the T-ball glove that Dad bought him every time we play baseball and I watch him grin ear to ear. Memories.
The memories are not in the things. I used to believe that you had to have the item to remember the event until I lost that bag. While I keep certain things, I keep a lot less now. I also have found minimalism and know that the memories are not in the things. I could take a picture of the item and it be about the same as having the item to remember. No matter what happens to stuff there is always more memories to be made. No matter what has happened there is always time while everyone is here to make more memories.
As I write this, I can see my wife sitting in front of her computer screen, checking this blog post for typos balling her eyes out [Steph: It happened]. I am not writing this down for that purpose. I am writing this down, so you know, that you never know what memories stick. What memories will last. Spend time with your kid, knowing that seventeen years later, they could be married with a kid, sitting at a laptop, writing about memories you may have shelved, or even remember, but seem to just be one of many.
A Revamped Life 