IT ALL WORKS OUT IN THE END

Just thinking

     (excerpt from my memoir)

      I was never much of an athlete. My mind simply wasn’t quick enough to respond to the instantaneous reactions needed for sports. It hasn’t improved as I’ve gotten older, by the way. All through grade school a common phrase that got repeated like a mantra on the playground was, “You guys get Foster. We had him yesterday.”

     Needless to say, I dreaded “play period” because not being good at sports was shameful in those days. I don’t know if it’s any better today. I hope it is. In fact, I had a Sunday School teacher, who shall remain nameless, who said in class one time that if you didn’t like sports, then you were not a good Christian. I swear that that’s true! That pretty much took care of any hopes I had in my young preteen life of being in favor with God. Guilt and rejection rose in my psyche like a thermometer on a hot summer day.

     Of course, the athletes were the cool kids—the admired kids—the popular kids. I used to daydream that one day I would wake up suddenly and be a super athlete. I even prayed about that, making promises to God to be especially good if God would just make that happen. It was a true test of faith when that didn’t materialize. (That would join the list of my other requests, one being that I would go out to the garage/barn one morning and find a pony there, just waiting for me to ride it. I won’t go into detail about my other requests.)

     At any rate, technically, I never really had to wait to find out what position I was going to play—right field—where kids seldom hit the ball. I just needed to know for which team.

     One day during a softball game on the playground of the Milton H. Allen elementary school—I’m guessing the year was 1955 or thereabouts—the usual routine of team selection took place by the “captains,” and I made my way to my appointed position.

     The game dragged on. I daydreamed my way through most of it. Then suddenly I heard some commotion up toward home plate. Kids were looking in my direction and I couldn’t figure out why. They were yelling something that I couldn’t make out. I took off my hat (as if that were going to help), and lo and behold, much to my surprise, a ball landed it!

     Kids were ecstatic!  “Do you see that?”  “Whoa, Foster! Way to go!”  For one brief moment of my life, I was a sports hero of sorts.

     The next day when the teams were being chosen, I was certain somebody would mention my name first. They didn’t. The mantra was familiar: “You guys get Foster. We had him yesterday.”

     Years later, listening to Peter, Paul, and Mary (one of my favorite groups of all time), Paul Stokey sang a song he had written called “Right Field.” It blew me away. The story of the lyrics sounded almost identical to my big moment in softball.

     Hearing that was both amusing and enlightening at the same time. What seemed like such a big deal years ago, was really little more than the growing pains of finding out who I am and who I am not. It’s true for all of us I think. Those moments when we feel awkward or out of place are really part of the self-discovery process. They are in no way a judgment against our self-worth nor as signs of failure. They merely correct our course in the direction of where we are meant to go.