Playing catch

Last evening was spent with most of my immediate family as we watched my eldest nephew play a game of baseball. The age range spanned 56 years, the stories in those years, varied, colorful, tragic, irreverent...

A small, sweet, chilled-early-June moment that stood out involved a game of catch between an energetic (albeit allergic) five year old boy and his grandpa--playing a simple game of catch with a lime green tennis ball--furry and buoyant in the blue skied air.

A spitfire of sorts, the little guy cocked his arm, aimed, and drilled the ball.
It careened away from his body, the trajectory off course, and collided, suddenly, with a thud, against the temple of a young mother, also present to watch the 'big boys' baseball game in the ball field behind this little game of catch.

Stunned, she jumped, as the ball merely grazed her temple and designer sunglasses, she turned to see that it was a furry, green tennis ball; NOT, perchance, the squishy, furry flesh of one of the millions of tent worms/gypsy moths which have over run our lovely Northern Michigan foliage of late.

She grinned, laughed aloud, and the little guy chirped with a frenzied, emotional clatter of response, "OOH, SORRY!!!"