Thursday, April 28, 2011

Albion Baseball

It was a cold, overcast day for most of the day. About 6:30 p.m. the blue sky chased the clouds off to the east and the sun came out. That's a good omen for tomorrow, but didn't help today's photo any at all.

This afternoon after my day's errands were accomplished I took a walk of a couple of miles up to Grand and Lex, then east to Dale, followed by a loop around Linwood Park. It was afternoon and the kids were out of school for the day. I hadn't seen any teams practicing in the last weeks, but today there was a baseball game in progress. More accurately slow pitch softball (maybe fast pitch, but the pitches were slow and loopy.) This was amateur kids' ball and they were having fun, plus they had spectators - grandparents and tiger moms were out in force. They even had t-shirts as team uniforms. I watched a while then continued the journey.


I spent a little time organizing some of my books today. It's a retired person's task. I have books left from about 50 years of sampling this and that. I stumbled onto some old books of prose and poetry by Richard Brautigan, a hippie-ish guy who lived in San Francisco when he was still living. I found "The Pill Versus the Springhill Mine Disaster" and in it one of my favorite poems - one that makes me laugh out loud and at least smile broadly whenever I read it, "Albion Breakfast."

And I quote:

"Albion Breakfast"
For Susan

Last night (here) a long pretty girl
asked me to write a poem about Albion,
so she could put it in a black folder
that has albion printed nicely
in white on the cover.

I said yes. She's at the store now
getting something for breakfast.
I'll surprise her with this poem
when she gets back.

The Prairie Princess used this poem one time for a high school class when the instructor asked them to bring an amusing poem to class. I think it made her smirk a bit, too.

3 comments:

Santini said...

Amusing, again.

Hope plays Albion College in baseball, basketball, football, etc. I've been there for a conference or two, myself. So I was confused when I saw the title of your post.

Still, baseball is a sign of spring. Though I mostly watch it mid-winter in Florida.

Gino said...

Gee, You're So Beautiful That It's Starting To Rain

by Richard Brautigan

Oh, Marcia,
I want your long blonde beauty

to be taught in high school,

so kids will learn that God

lives like music in the skin

and sounds like a sunshine harpsicord.

I want high school report cards

to look like this:

Playing with Gentle Glass Things
A

Computer Magic
A

Writing Letters to Those You Love
A

Finding out about Fish
A

Marcia's Long Blonde Beauty
A+!

Jimi said...

Good stuff. Brautigan wrote a bunch of pithy poems. And they're usually short.