My Summertime Companion

I don't leave home without it.

If you are a baseball mom—or soccer, lacrosse, or you name the sport—you may already be acquainted with the power of the rolling cooler. But this post is my homage to what has become one of my most useful, and therefor valuable, possessions. This model, purchased at Stop & Shop for about $30, is my favorite because it has a hard plastic interior and is easy to clean. The styles that have a soft, vinyl inside always get smelly and moldy after one season. This is my third summer hauling this puppy around and she's still growing strong!

Below is my masterlist of items to include in your cooler; I promise it will increase your popularity!

• food and water are the no brainers, but here are some specifics. The beverages should back on the bottom, with loose ice. All sandwiches should be packed in plastic containers, not baggies to avoid the soggy factor. Recycled chinese food containers fit in this cooler perfectly!
• the top, zippered compartment fits lots of snacks easily; just don't then put heavy things on top or instead of having chips, you'll have bits of chips.
• other essentials: sunscreen, bug spray, purelle, wet ones, napkins, plasticware, salt.
• individual gatorade powder packets
• sewing kit (I have used mine to fix a button that popped off a uniform; and not once, but twice, have used the needles to extract sunflower seed shells that got stuck too far up in a ball player's gum (ouch!) because dental floss wasn't working. And yes, the needles were sterilized in between times!
• a stack of paper napkins; twice in one weekend these were used to solve bloody nose crises.
• wash cloths serve myriad purposes; the most important for my family is when the ice in the cooler starts to melt, you have an instant sweat relief rag during really hot summer games.
• bottle opener/cork screw: more valuable for the beach or post game activities.

And best of all, whenever I head out with my partner in tow, I hear the old Bud Lite commercial theme song in my head...except I change "Mr." to "Mrs."

Autumn

This post is by guest blogger Turner French, written Sept. 9, 2010.

I was standing on the pitcher's mound, the highest point in the field. I can feel the breeze whooshing, wanting to blow my hat off. In the background, I can see trees—some with leaves, some without. The air is cool and crisp. It makes a shiver run down my spine. As I'm in my windup, the slow, cool breeze at my back urges the ball to go harder and farther. As it reaches the plate, I can see it's right down the middle. I can hear the umpire shout, "Steeeriiiike three!" As I walk off the field, I smell that smell that only fall can create.

My Yardstick: Bathrooms and French Fries

After spending about 90 seconds with me, you learn that from June to August easily 80% of my spare time is spent alongside baseball diamonds. Both my boys are fortunate enough to play on summer all-star teams and that means I travel all over CT to watch. At the end of last year's season, I realized that I had begun to rate the little league fields I visit. My criteria? Bathroom cleanliness and how good the french fries are. Today, I share my findings.

Rec Park in Southington: Home of Southington South
They win the prize for the yummiest ballpark fries I have yet to taste, but have the least pleasant to use bathrooms. The facilities are behind the outfield and one tends to feel like psycho-killers are lurking around every corner. There is also never, ever any toilet paper or soap. Not good.

Parker Farms Fields in Wallingford: Home of Yalesville Little League
Our home fields get the spic-n-span prize. Bathrooms are always clean and well stocked with all the necessary tools. While the fries are acceptable, the true finds at this stand are the chicken nuggets (the best I have ever had anywhere) and the fried dough (quite yummy and not fried—it's cooked in a convection oven so you don't even have to feel guilty about eating it).

McCabe-Waters Little League Fields in Bristol
These bathrooms are even dirtier that the Southington commodes, the bowl overflowed every day we visited the field, but they did have soap and towels. While it was way too hot to eat during the week the Yalesville 10s played here, others sampled their fried oreos and raved. I enjoyed their raspberry blue slushie cups profusely. I did not enjoy the poison ivy that surrounds their outfield.

Memorial Park: Home of Southington North
Very nice fields. Bathrooms are clean, but their sink is annoying. The water only stays on if you hold the button down, making it difficult to actually wash both hands. Plus, if your attention gets diverted by the big, creepy spider's web in the corner, it can actually distract you from doing your business. Again, it was too hot to eat their french fries, but this field has a big plus: there is a Rita's Italian Ice right around the corner.

Breen Field at the Giamatti Little League Center in Briston: Home of Edgewood Little League
Gorgeous fields with the best stands for viewers. The bathrooms are immaculate, but there are no paper towels...just hand blowers (which I detest). Their fries were delish but they had the slowest service I have ever experienced.

Blackham School Fields in Bridgeport
Gross, gross, gross. Enough said.

Unity Park in Trumbull
Huge complex of fields, too bad the fields are in such bad shape. The bathrooms were tolerable, but their food was alarmingly over priced.

Berlin Little League Fields
Very nice fields sort of nestled down in a cozy spot. They get low marks from this sports fan because they lock their bathrooms, requiring that you have to wait in line and ask for a key every time you have to tinkle. Very inconvenient.

Plainville Little League Fields
These fields will always have a special place in my heart. While the food is good and the potty rooms are adequate, what makes them important to me is that this is the spot where my family gathered the night my father-in-law passed away. That night, July 9 2008, Turner ripped a line drive up the middle showing us shades of the hitter he'd become.

West Haven Little League Fields
The beautiful ocean breezes make this a nice place to watch a game, even though overall the feeling of the site is a bit grubby. There is litter everywhere. Their food stand is immaculate and I hear the egg sandwich is to die for. I did not partake. The bathroom facilities are totally acceptable. I am a fan of their league president who openly berated parents from Guilford for drinking beer at a little league facility (which is not allowed!). These same parents were making bloody marys in the parking lot of the Yalesville fields this summer.

Old Tavern Road Park: home of Orange Little League
This is a large complex of 6 fields, made to look even larger because their parking is in the middle of all the fields. They win the prize for strangest bathroom experience. The commode is adjacent to one of their big diamonds. Because it has been so hot, the bathroom door and roof vent to the out building were propped open. As the sports fans were cheering "go, go, go" to the action on the field, this potty-goer couldn't help but feel like they were cheering for me.

More than the Sum of its Parts

Here in the middle of winter, while everything is cold and stark, my mind, like yours probably, is already turning to spring. What is it about us that is wired to always be thinking about the next thing? Why is it so hard to live in the moment? Perhaps that is fodder for a future blog?

To me, Spring means two things: gardening and baseball.

I am already imagining the schedule change that takes place in my house beginning mid-April: where homework must be done as soon as school is over and dinners are eaten on the bleachers of the Yalesville Little League fields while my boys are practicing or playing. I’ve also already begun searching the seed catalogues for what new items I want to put in my vegetable garden and considering an expansion of the amount of space I’ve allotted for it.

My thought this morning is about the commonality of these two pursuits; the idea that in both cases, the whole is often more than the sum of its parts.

Right now, in mid-January, my garden is merely an eyesore. The plot is piled high with leaves from the garden that, once the ground thaws, will be turned into the soil. The stakes that hold up the fence that keeps deer and Turner’s size 10-and-a-half hoofers out of my garden stand gawking against the snowy ground. Yes, more than once, a child chasing an errant fly ball in our backyard has landed square on top of a tomato plant. It’s amazing how a few five foot pieces of lumber sticking out of the ground will suddenly make my boys more careful.

But I know that come June, July and August, this otherwise insignificant plot of land will be bursting with the greens, reds, and purples of my basil, lettuce, cukes, tomatos, eggplant, beets, etc., and I can’t wait!

Similarly, when the baseball season starts, the teams are comprised of children with a very wide range of playing ability. Coaching staffs haven’t necessarily gelled yet. And sometimes, emotions run high.

Yet, by mid-June, individual players have mastered numerous skills and strategies (I still can get giddy remembering Turner’s 56 pitch shut out during all-stars last summer), and teams have coalesced into … well ….teams.

While none of this may be particularly surprising or miraculous ... it all signifies something more to me. As a parent, I eagerly wait for the fulfillment of possibility in my own children. Where will they excel? Where will they meet their fullest potential? What pursuits, traits, and rigors of their childhood will they carry into adulthood? This to me is when they will become more of the sum of their parts. Just as the combination of seeds, water and sunshine can yield one surprisingly perfect tomato, I wonder what habits of mind, body and spirit will push my children toward excellence? In the same way that running, batting and fielding drills create muscle memory so game play is instinctive, I wonder which of our family’s drills or traditions will become instinctive?

It happens to each of us. Suddenly, magically, we all mature and assemble all the gangly, disparate elements of our youths into one, recognizable adult persona. This Spring will find me, once again, taking the lessons of gardening and little league and applying those truths to my children. I am confident an adventure awaits my spirited boys and, indeed, our entire family. I wonder what it will be.