Personal Narrative: Two Minutes About Dad

Clouds mugged the sun of light as the day progressed. Dusk filled the air on the baseball diamond where I would leave my legacy. Forth, was the championship game to be played, and the pressure of the starting pitcher, was not fazing me. In the zone, we said the Little League pledge. Jolts of excitement filled my muscles as I recited the piece that I know all too well. Warming up, I was controlled, and was ready to bring it. The game began with a bang. Strikeout after strikeout I fired, giving my all every single pitch. ‘BOOM’ went the glove after every pitch, whizzed right by the petrified batter. However, this was not much different for our team. Just two hits filled the board, I and my teammate Ian Keth. Scoring off of this was efficient,

A ball flew far into the field, our Norse ladies ran after the ball and it was quick;y thrown to Millemmi Lucero. After the pass, Millemmi acts fast to tag our rival running to the next base. “Out” yells the umpire as excitement and anticipation traveled the field. Millemmi #34 of our lady Norse softball team mentioned that “ Life isn't always physical, it has to be mental too, a goal has to be something you mentally want not just physically prepare for.”

Just a few seconds before the click of the camera, I was standing in front of the home plate, my hands tightly wrapped around my bat. It was the 9th inning with one man on third base, and with two outs already,

I threw the first pitch and 5 minutes later “Strike 3,” the ump said! I was 0-2 with an RBI and I pitched 4 inning shutout. The next day we played at 10:00 and 2:00. I woke up and got ready. We were late to leave.

The start of the spring meant baseball season was right around the corner, and our team was hungrier than ever. Our team had high expectations for ourselves, coaches, and even parents. Every day the warm sun beaten down from our shaded faces to the hard dirt, this marked the perfect time to take sharply hit ground balls and pop flies in between the sacred bright white chalk lines. We took drills on the perfect cut green grass surrounded by the four bases shaped into the perfect diamond, evenly separated ninety feet apart. My team always moved with abrupt hustle feeding for every rep possible, while each metal spike from our cleats gripped tightly into the earth.

We have runners on third and second. I walked up to the plate not confident at all and took a deep breath and walked into the batter's box. The pitcher wasn’ t very intimidating but, I was so nervous because I knew I had to hit the ball to the outfield in order to score. The pitch was perfect, right up the middle, and it was slow. I hit a hard ground ball up the middle and it went all the way to the outfield. Meredith scored! Our crowd cheered, everyone knew that, this hit had helped us get one run closer to winning. I jumped up and down on second base, I was so proud of myself! I had hit an important hit! Next up to bat was Brooklyn she hit one to the outfield also which scored Hallie. Our crowd cheered even louder this time. Everyone was hype and in the moment, it was so much fun. Their crowd was speechless, they knew we didn’t “cheat” or do something wrong, its just

I remember the summer of 1960. We sweated in grass-tinted light. In the batter's box, I eyed my father on the mound. My brother ragged on me. He said, "Don’t let Dad strike you out."

My dad is the perfect picture of the “American Dad.” He plays football in the yard, has “a talk” with any boy before they are allowed to date me, and considers grilling a fine art; so, when he informed my family that we would be embarking on the “Good Ole American Family Road Trip” I was not even slightly surprised. Me being the travel enthusiast that I am was overjoyed at the idea of travelling to other states and experiencing things that I had not yet seen, but I was also weary at the thought of spending almost two weeks straight in a car with my family.

In their infinite wisdom, NAU have scheduled my health insurance payment for January-May, my “course fees” for the spring term and my first rent and meal plan payments for a week before I get my Student Finance money through. Chloe and I are going to go to the finance office on Monday, explain the situation to them and hope that we can be granted an extension. However, given all the financial guarantees we made to NAU before coming here, neither of us are holding our breaths for leniency (especially not Chloe - we have to the cardiologists today to try and get that sorted). I’m just giving you the heads up in case I need to borrow some money until the loan/grant come through.

I had just woken up in the morning getting ready to head to Oak Grove. I arrived at Oak Grove with a few of my team members already there. Once everyone had showed up we took batting practice in the cages. After hitting we had to wait for our bus to show up. The waiting was excruciating. We decided we would pass the time by playing a game. The rules were simple you threw the ball at someone and they had to field it cleanly, if they didn’t they were out. We played for a good twenty minutes forgetting that our bus wasn’t here yet. Our coaches were frantically calling the bus station but the bus wasn’t coming. So a kid on our team named Jake called his parents who lived across the street from the school. He asked them if they could get their RV

It had been an unbelievable season so far, we were going into the championship game of junior league with only two losses. Of course, the only other team with a better record than us was the black team. We gave them their only loss on the second game of the regular season. Now, after defeating the better of the Mosinee teams in the semi finals, my dad, who was also the coach of our blue team, had stopped to watch the rest of the game between black and red.

The past two days there has been a lot going on, so I’m going to combine them into one entry.

The day I found out my step dad, Greg, had cancer is still etched into my memory. I was in the 7th grade at a basketball game. I was sitting on the bleachers, cheering loudly for our team when my mom came and sat down next to me. Her eyes were bright red and puffy. It was obvious she had been crying so I asked her what was wrong. I remember exactly what she told me, “I need to talk to you. It’s about Greg; He has cancer.” Short and simple, straight to the point. Who knew three little sentences could change your whole life? I definitely didn't.

In just four seconds it was all over. Everything I knew about the game had vanished before me as I knew something had just gone terribly wrong. It was only the seventh game of my sophomore season when everything came to an end. In the early innings against Slidell, we clung to a minuscule lead of just one run; I knew that I had to step my game up if we had any chance of winning. As the game progressed through the night and the temperature dropped along with the sun, my body began to ache as I continually pushed it beyond its physical limits. Shivering in the dugout while covered with dried sweat and dirt, coach called my name since it was my turn to bat. As I stepped into the box, I peered down towards third base, catching a glimpse

I remember walking into the baseball complex and breathing in the familiar smell of the concession stand, sunflower seeds, and Gatorade. Upon walking into the dugout, red clay, grass, and sweat were added to the smell. It was comforting and got me into game mode. When the clock struck noon, we had already won our first game and were starting our second. By halftime, we had a three-point lead. In the three innings that had comprised the first half of our game, I'd had multiple outs on first, making our fielding short and simple. This, however, would not be the case in the second half.