Father's Day 2012 in the GGA

Last Sunday was the second Father's Day without my father's.  Reflecting on the things I learned from the witness of his life I wrote the following.  I can still see him smile, and laugh out loud in parts, in hearing a reading of "Casey at the Bat", a late 19th century poem written by Ernest Lawrence Thayer  .  To honor my father's memory, and to help others better know him, I offer the following:

Johnny at The Bat

(with apologies to Ernest Lawrence Thayer)

A Father's Day 2012 Poem for Dad

By John C. Davis, Jr.
June 17, 2012

With daddy batting cleanup for the Mudville nine that day

(With Blake at second and Jimmy Flynn ninety feet away)

In the ninth, and down by two, in the season's final game

The expectations of the fans were really pretty lame.


They would rather have seen Casey  a comin ' to the bat

With all his pomp and swagger and his tippin' of his hat.

But dad just took a big cut at the first good pitch that came

And drove a liner to the gap and extended the game.


He brushed his pants, and then tipped his hat, after his safe slide

Into second, in scoring position, with the score now  tied,

And waited for the man on deck who surely drove him in,

And with him they celebrated another Mudville win.


And with these acts dad demonstrated his thoughts  'bout right and wrong:

"Don't take a strike, get on base, move other runners  along.

Never play for personal glory, life is a team game.

Always do the best you can, trust others to do the same".

First Retirement Trip

As Julie and I prepare to make our first retirement trip to Chapel Hill to see our granddaughters and our new grandson,  we are brushing up our language skills so that we might more effectively communicate with the natives.  Today's background reading is to help prepare us for our verbal interactions with our 3 year old Maggie. The following poem, by Billy Collins, we think will be most helpful. 

Child Development

by

Billy Collins

"As sure as prehistoric fish grew legs

and sauntered off the beaches into forests

working up some irregular verbs for their

first conversation, so three-year-old children

enter the phase of name-calling.

Every day a new one arrives and is added

to the repertoire. You Dumb Goopyhead,

You Big Sewerface, You Poop-on-the-Floor

(a kind of Navaho ring to that one)

they yell from knee level, their little mugs

flushed with challenge.

Nothing Samuel Johnson would bother tossing out

in a pub, but then the toddlers are not trying

to devastate some fatuous Enlightenment hack.

They are just tormenting their fellow squirts

or going after the attention of the giants

way up there with their cocktails and bad breath

talking baritone nonsense to other giants,

waiting to call them names after thanking

them for the lovely party and hearing the door close.

The mature save their hothead invective

for things: an errant hammer, tire chains,

or receding trains missed by seconds,

though they know in their adult hearts,

even as they threaten to banish Timmy to bed

for his appalling behavior,

that their bosses are Big Fatty Stupids,

their wives are Dopey Dopeheads

and that they themselves are Mr. Sillypants".

--Billy Collins