They Also Play Baseball

It has been a long while since I last sat at the computer to write a blog entry. Since then, my innards have been engaged with invaders bent on clearing space for themselves. At first, I thought it was food poisoning, but it is probably just a cosmic system of justice finally turning its attention to me.

A week or two ago, I returned to bed in the middle of the night, knowing that there could not possibly be any liquid left in my system. "People die when that happens," I said to myself. Then I said, "To hell with it! I am too tired to care."

"This is not what it is like to die," I thought: "This is dying. This is how it happens."

So far, I have survived, and in pretty good shape for an old, dehydrated codger. So, this morning, I drove across town to watch the TOTs play baseball; those old guys who start out toward first base wondering whether they will make it, who know that if they don't, they will have given it everything they had left.

Within a couple of minutes, the first guy said, "Conrad! Where have you been?" I told him.

A couple of minutes later, another TOT came to the fence: "I heard you have been sick! How are you now?" I told him.

The next guy on deck came to the fence, too: "I'm glad to hear you are feeling better!", he said.

"This," I thought, "is what it is like to live. If you are lucky."

The TOTs also play baseball.

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