Playing Smart, together

In the discussions around building a new high school in New Westminster, will politicians ask the community to choose between the Mercer Stadium site and the Massey Theatre site as the location for the new high school, suggesting that we must choose between sports and cultural facilities? Here is one writer's response to this notion.

Playing Smart

               

                               by Sandra Bruneau

             

When she was in grade ten, everyone in her class wanted to play

softball, especially on warm, spring Fridays. Students knew the

drill: they would stand around the classroom’s perimeter, waiting

to be picked for one team or the other. She and a boy with bad

eyesight would always be the last ones to be picked, which

embarrassed them both. She rationalized her status by saying that,

although she thought the game was fascinating, softball was likely

not her forte since she played classical piano and her mother was

fearful she would hurt her hands playing ball. She knew she stood

outside the softball-obsessed clique, but that was that. Once on

the playing field, she would be relegated to an outfielder’s position,

not a worthy pitcher, catcher, first baseman, or shortstop. She

would wait, meditating on her gavottes, while batters struck out

or hit the ball inside the diamond. Occasionally, a ball would visit

her in the outfield and she would wait for it to land rather than

jeopardize the condition of her hands by trying to catch it. This did

not endear her to her team. Sometimes, with no one to tend it, the

ball would get lost in the tall grass, and with bases loaded, the

opponents would score big with a home run. She’d be blamed and

would again be the brunt of school jokes.

One day, a batter hit a ball particularly well and straight towards her.

One instinct told her to catch it; the other told her to get out of its

way. She did the latter, in the midst of howling and derisive comment

by teammates and opponents alike.

The next day, she sat her piano exam at a nearby centre, and she

scored higher than anyone ever had in the history of those exams.

She went on to six more piano competitions, eventually taking the

Montreal International Piano Competition. By chance one day, she

met a baseball player in a glove shop. They chatted and he reported

his father was an accomplished tenor. Their friendship developed

and eventually they married. In due course, they gave birth to two

children, one a musician, the other, a baseball player. The children

never ever played catch with each other, but they always played

smart and their mother never ceased worrying about their hands.

© Sandra Bruneau
Vancouver
Writer….teacher….
public educator.…