Sunday Links: Fathers, Ice, and Remembering

Links for your Sunday

I am one of eight children. I fall number two in the line-up — an older sister, a younger brother after me, and then three more sisters, before two brothers bring up the rear.

Growing up, we played a lot of kickball. Perhaps it was just because it was a sport that everyone seemed able to play with a minimal amount of injury or equipment. We’d have people over for Sunday dinners and play kickball in the big wide yard of our Texas home.

The dads always played with us while the moms cooked or cleaned. Or, as I now know, sat and talked in their few moments of peace. The dad’s seemed to always play kickball.

The families we knew were homeschooled and our mothers seemed to permeate every aspect of our life, while the dads worked distant jobs. But, they played kickball.

A running joke during the games was for everyone to tell me not to hurt myself every time I came up to kick. “Don’t hurt yourself, Boo!” They’d cheer as I walked up to the makeshift plate. Once, my dad decided I’d make a better bat than a ball player, and jokingly grabbed me and used me to bunt the ball.

I remember thinking it was so funny at the time. I was the bat. The blunt instrument. Specially chosen. My rail-thin body. My ineptitude. Now made into a punchline.

Years later, in college, I told the story to a friend as we stayed up late watching movies. She stopped the movie and asked me a question no one had ever asked. “Did it hurt?”

She was so concerned.