Pokin Fun by Doc Blakely
Everyone gets advice from their parents about choosing a profession I suppose. My father wanted me to be a professional baseball player but he never bothered to play catch with me. He just heard they made a lot of money and knew that he didn’t. So I went out for the baseball team. They tried to make me a catcher but as close as I ever got to it was chaser. I was a stand out on the team only because I was the only player who got to wear his hat backwards. I could chew tobacco with the best of them but I never did learn how to spit through that mask. So I quit. My Dad told me I had better have a good reason for quitting. I gave him two good reasons…pointing and laughing.
Then he decided I should be a professional boxer. He did build a boxing ring and told me to get in there and fight. He never boxed either but he was good at thinking up things for me to do to become rich and famous. He invited kids my age to come over and box. I would have done well as a boxer but my fingers hurt too much. The other boxers kept stepping on them. I also couldn’t stand the sight of blood. And I bled quite often from fiercely attacking my opponent’s fists with my nose. So my Dad taught me a boxing strategy. Let your opponent hit you until he gets so tired he can’t lift his arms then punch him out. The one time I tried that it worked beautifully. I heard the guy puffing with exhaustion and threw a wild haymaker that really connected but my eyes were swelled shut so I didn’t get to see it. Then they disqualified me because I knocked out the referee. She never did forgive me.
Anyway when I got married and had kids of my own I decided to draw on my athletic experiences to help them. I was in the yard one day pitching softball to my two boys when some other kids showed up. I was throwing pretty fast to my boys and they hit well enough to prove the theory of genetic mutation, when Sarah, a five year old carrying a rag doll by the neck said she wanted to bat. She lay the doll down gently and said, “Now you stay right here while Mommy bats the ball.” I wound up really fast about 3 revolutions but let the ball go real slow when it left my hand. Sarah almost fell down waiting for the ball to get there and missed three times for a slow motion out. Everybody was laughing hysterically when Sarah picked up her rag doll by the neck with one hand, put the other on her hip and said, “Well, you wouldn’t be able to bat well either if you had just had a baby.” www.docblakely.com
