Life’s Long Walk

my friend spadoman is on hiatus while he participates in the longest walk. he has graciously opened his archives and dusty has graciously let me post them. spadoman does not know how long he will be on the longest walk, but has assured me he will return- hopefully having found what he is seeking. betmo

This was originally written on March 11, 2003 on a laptop computer as I recovered from my second heart bypass operation.

I was 36 the first time it happened- around July, sometime in 1985. I was playing softball in Hinckley. I played for the Alpine Inn team and we had a game one evening. I had been the pitcher and batted cleanup for all the time I had played on the Class B Minnesota State Softball Association sanctioned league. Danny ‘what’s his name’, the owner of the Pine City bakery where Barb worked, had played for the Alpine Inn team for a number of years. I guess there were plenty of teams around. guys getting together to play softball, having fun, re-creating. But there were only two really well known teams in East Central Minnesota, Alpine Inn and Bob’s Standard. Bob’s Standard, sponsored by the local Standard service station, was a really good Class B team. Nobody hardly ever beat them. Alpine Inn, the other well known team was good too, no-one hardly ever beat us either except Bob’s Standard! I always thought of Bob’s as a really serious team, and Alpine as the bunch of guys who wanted to have fun, laugh, joke around, go out after the games and get drunk, that sort of thing.

So Danny, the bakery owner, had seen me play on a very recreational church league. He played left field for the Lutherans. I played wherever the born again christian Evangelical Free Church would ask me to. At one of the church games, Danny was in left, and i was up to the plate, I whacked one over his head for a homer. Next time I was up, he backed up, and I whacked another over his head. This happened a third time and I wish I could remember a fourth, but definitely three times in a row. After the game, Danny asked me if I’d be interested in playing for the Alpine Inn team. I was flattered. things like this happened rarely in my life and I enjoyed being appreciated.

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