Heads Up!

 Heads Up!

“Heads Up!”  When I was a kid, that’s what we used to yell on the baseball diamond when someone hit a popup that headed into the bystanders.  I always thought that was bad advice.  Maybe it was just me, but I always had a hard time finding the ball and so I never knew if I was about to be hit as it descended to earth, or maybe into the bleachers is a better descriptor.  I adapted by trying to curl up and protect my noggin as best I could, and letting the probabilities play out that odds were that it was going to hit somewhere else.

It’s ironic I suppose that the only time I successfully located the baseball when it was fouled off, it wasn’t a popup; it was a line drive and I thought I was going to be severely injured.  It was in the late 1980’s.  Michelle and I were living in the Las Vegas valley where I had been transferred by my employer.  At that time, the Las Vegas Stars played in a sweet little stadium past the end of the famous Las Vegas Strip.  I brought my two oldest sons to watch a number of games the three plus years we lived there. 

The game in question, the boys and I were sitting down from the third base dugout.  Sandy Alomar Jr. played catcher for the Stars then, and he was up to bat.  Sandy hit a screamer that seemed like it had me in its sights.  I didn’t have much time to react, so I just grabbed my boys, clutched them tight, and turned my back to the baseball missal.  I don’t remember if I had time to clench my teeth, but I do know I had time to think about how much that line drive was going to hurt.  As I braced, I heard a loud “gong” sound – that was the baseball colliding with and bouncing off of the metal handrail just in front of us.  I turned back just in time to see the ball rolling to a stop and getting scooped up by the ball boy.  It went down into my mental stat book as a near miss.

This past couple of weeks the weather has been quite nice for the most part.  Low temps at night have yet to hit the freezing mark, and most days have been warming into the upper 60’s.  We successfully squeezed out almost all of the juice that October had to give. 

I’m looking to last Tuesday morning as a sign.  I was in the study working on my weekend homily.  I needed a refill of my coffee cup to get to my point.  As I passed by the glass doors leading to the patio, motion caught my eye.  I stopped and turned my attention out into the back yard.  There had to be nearly fifty robins in the yard.  Most were hopping on the ground while others perched in the trees.  A year or two ago we had hundreds of blackbirds swarm the yard in the late fall migration pitstop.  This flock, while much smaller, was still probably the most robins that I’ve seen at once. 

I saw it for what it was.  Despite the extended nice weather (we actually got a kayak paddle in the day after this happened) of late October, those robins were a “heads up!” from November.  This morning the first hours were sunny and pleasant.  But by late morning a low ceiling of gray clouds settled in for an extended stay.  We are due for a good rain through Thursday.  It will be the first cold rain of the season.  Once a cold rain falls, it seems that November settles in.  The sky will be low and gray more days than not.  And the wind will switch to mainly from the northwest, its bite getting sharper all along,  And we’ll be wearing heavy jackets and something to keep the fingers warm soon. 

Put the coffee on and hunker down.

His Peace <><

Deacon Dan

PS        And yes, the Brewers winning the World Series likely had an influence in using a baseball analogy.   

Photo by Patrice Bouchard on Unsplash