O'tay, Por'y Have this photograph, of my 11 year old baseball team. 12 of us boys, in varying attempts at uniforms, all posed with our gloves and our coaches. We were a pretty salty little bunch of ballplayers, but you know, back then, that's all we had.......weren't no nintendo or gameboys, or more than one channel on the tv, so we became very good ball players. There wasn't any of this T-ball, or coach-pitch leagues back then, no by george, we played the real thing from the time we could walk. But, we didn't have sponsors and such either, and we would travel to the other towns with our rag-tag uniforms and beat the crap out of their kids and their sparkling uniforms with their "Thomas Cadillac" or "Safeway" corporate sponsorshihps on their uniforms. In the photo are twelve boys of varying degrees of Native ancestry; full-bloods with blue-black hair, half-bloods in varying degrees of skin-tone, and all the others..... Some with ball caps, some not....... The thing I remember is none of us went by our Christian name. There was Chip, and Spanky, and two of us known as Sonnie, Jay-Cee, Dee, Chubby, Dugger, Sa-lo-li (squirrel in Cherokee), A-Jay, Keno, and 'Stick. I remember we all could at least understand Cherokee, so our coaches didn't use signals, they would just yell over to us from the coaches box to "Come Here" as the command to steal a base, or if you were rounding the base and they wanted you to stop, they would yell it out in Cherokee....... We were very reminiscent of "Our Gang", you know, Alfalfa, Spanky, Porky, Buckwheat, etc.......... Looking at that picture gave me pause to smile and reflect on the first kid on the back row, with the shock of hair standing straight up on his head, the right fielder.....the one who wanted to be Roberto Clemente, but instead, looked more like Alfalfa. I can hear the third base coach now, "Sonnie!...hega..Owenvsv!.....(you) Go home." And in my head, I am Roberto Clemente, number 21, sliding into homeplate, cleats high in the air......."Safe"! O'-tay, Por'y!! |
"O'tay, Por'y" © Wauhilau as posted in
alt.discuss.clubs.public.culture.native-american.benable
on Sun, May 21, 2006, 2:58pm (EDT-3)
bead bar courtesy of Greasy Grass