WHERE DO THEY GO

A Model A, circa 1913 or so,and I may have missed it by 20 years, occupied some of my youth. I hadn't thought of it for years.

A wifffle ball game at a park near the ocean adds to my reflections. What they have to do with each other is the topic of this morning's blog.

Bill Moore, two years older than I , lived up the street from my childhood. I always hung out with the older guys, and one way to be around them was to work on, mainly push Bill's Model A down the street until he could get up enough speed to start it. Then he'd ride around a couple of blocks, it would die, and we would push it back home when it couldn't make it on its own.

Yesterday on Coronado Beach my son, daughter, and two grandsons and I played a 9-inning game of wiffle ball on a huge park field where we shared our Summer play with some Lacrosse girls. Hey, they were nice, and it is California. We could see the sand and the ocean just to the first base side. Wind currents did strange things to the flight of the ball. Although I lost, I hit for the cycle as did our daughter. Our son and younger grandson didn't, but they won.

The connection? Why don't people work on old cars and play wiffle ball anymore? I mean where were all the other people yesterday? Why do I see empty fields in the middle of the afternoon? Saturday afternoon we went to the park at Petco Field where they have a beautiful little ball diamond with fences and bases and chalk lines, at least grass cut baselines, and there was one other dad and his kids along with two neighbor kids playing. Again, we had a great time. Again, where were the others? Plus, we never saw one Model A.

Where do they go? What else is there to do? A childhood is special. And all too brief. I know, there are a lot of things to do besides work on old junkers and play wiffle ball. But there may not be too many any better.