289: The best pitcher on my Little League team announces he doesn’t “feel like playing” and walks off the field. I’ve been making good throws from shortstop, so the coach escorts me to the mound and says, “Just throw hard.” I become the go-to pitcher, starting or in relief (moving from shortstop). Occasionally, while I’m at shortstop, the third baseman crouches and yells, “Come on Ziggie, no batter Ziggie!”
290: Sgt. Bilko: meet Uncle Fester and Mr. Bluster.
291: This happened long-ago in America: I ask the young woman behind the counter in a Boston pharmacy for condoms. She looks stricken and retreats behind the medicinal barricade. A white-jacketed man emerges and informs me I am breaking the law, and “how dare you say such a thing to a young lady.”
292: Dump: meet Truck.
293: Perhaps at some point in school I could recite how a huge piece of metal lifts off the ground and lands relatively smoothly at the destination of the pilot's choosing. If so, I've forgotten, and I probably never really felt it in my bones, which are not hollow, which is one reason—as I now recall about birds—why I cannot fly.
294: I discovered I could fly when a truck backfired and I fled with the pigeons, scampering then lifting off, fueled by surprise and companionship. I wonder if this is a one-shot deal. But the only way to find out would be to land.
295: Last night I spent four minutes untangling the wires connected to a pair of headphones I put in a drawer alongside assorted wired devices. I do not recall spending any time tangling the wires before I closed the drawer. I have spent several hours of my life untangling wires, and I have never consciously tangled anything. It must be something I do.
296: Walkie: meet Talkie.
297: I see a mother and small child out of the corner of my eye. Someone steps between us as the mother’s hand swoops down and I hear a slapping sound as the child screams. The person between us passes, and I see the beach ball slowly descend as the child squeals, “Mommy, do it again!”
298: My fifth grade teacher assigned us to memorize the helping verbs but I didn’t. When she called on me, the best I could come up with was “assist, aid, comfort” (not really, but wouldn’t I have been something if I had?). She said (really) with stern firmness, “You will know them tomorrow.” And tomorrow I did, and I still do, six decades later (you’re going to have to trust me on this): am, is, are, was, were, be, being, been, has, have, had, do, does, did, can, will, should, would, may, might, must, can, could.
