What Inspires Me? #18 Batter UP!
I watched a lot of baseball this weekend, including 5-year-old Jack’s T-Ball and Ben’s 8-10 Little League. Each time those pint-sized players stepped up to the plate—regardless of which team—I willed them a hit.
And as the spindly scowling pitchers went into their windup, I willed them strikes. Baseball is hard work. At one at bat, our pitcher, Jameson had to throw 11 pitches before the batter took a base. Eleven times that batter squared up, eleven times that pitcher wound up, eleven tense trys.
The MLB record for the most pitches at a single at-bat is 21. It was set in 2018 by LA Angels’ pitcher Jaime Barria who used up 21 pitches to finally strike-out San Francisco Giants’ Brandon Belt.
Later, my son Max, who coaches Ben’s team, mentioned during pre-game prep, how pitcher and catcher aside, players might only have a couple of chances to get hands on a ball, so they had to be ready, and they had to make it good. Which got me thinking about all of us…
In 1923, arguably Babe Ruth’s best season—the only season he was named the American League’s MVP—his batting average was .349.
Not only is that the NY Yankees highest single-season batting average it’s also the Yankee’s all-time highest batting average. (The Babe’s MLB career batting average is .342.)
In baseball, the batting average (BA), is defined as the number of hits divided by at bats. Which means that out of ten times at bat, Babe Ruth got a hit less than 3 1/2 times—which means about 7 times he was OUT!
There is only one player in the history of Major League Baseball with a BA of 1000—One Thousand! His name is John Paciorek.
Drafted by the Houston Colts, Paciorek played in the minors until 1963 when he was promoted to the Colt 45’s active roster. In his one and only MLB game—Colt 45’s vs NY Mets—right-fielder Paciorek went to the plate five times. He hit 3 singles, walked twice and scored 4 runs. That day Houston beat the NY Mets with a score of 13-4.
Paciorek aside, the highest all-time single-season Batting Average record was set by Tetelo Vargas, an outfielder on the Negro League’s NY Cubans.
In 1943, at the age of 38, in his final recorded season, Vargas posted a batting average of .471. That means he got a hit almost 1 or of every 2 at bats. But not ever player is a heavy hitter. The MLB’s average Batting Average is about .250.
Which means every time an MLB batter—the best of the best—takes the mounds chances are about 4 to 1 they’ll make an out. But they keep taking that plate. They keep swinging. That’s what inspires me!
So I’ll end with the advice Coach Max gave his players this weekend:
Square up before every pitch.
Keep your eye on the ball.
Want to hit!
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Poetry Challenge #246-Live Your Color!
Let’s talk nails: Chipped or groomed? Hands, feet or both? Painted or not painted? 4. Sassy or nasty?
If you fessed up to number 4. Then get with the program. Why? It’s National Nail Polish Day!
“Madge” soaked her client’s hands in green Palmolive dish soap, so when playing “beauty salon” we did, too.
Poetry Challenge #245
Live Your Color!
Nail Polish comes in so many colors. Take a look at some of their names:
She’s a Rocket
All Oar Nothing
Bloom Service
Tapped Out
You Crack Me Up
Peggy Sunburn
Artist Garden
Semi-Charmed
Sorry I’m Late
Cosmic Glitter
Just for Kicks
Find nail polish color names that inspire you, or use some of the above names to write a poem. Can you make your poem tell a story? How many colors can you use?
Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes
Start Writing!
Don’t Think About it, just do it!
As they say at Essie, “LIVE YOUR COLOR!”
The Origin Story: National Nail Polish Day was created by the brand Essie ostensibly to celebrate the nail-care season. But really to boost flagging sales. Essie polish has been around for 40 years as a favorite (so they say) of nail pros because they create “surprising shades.” The first National Nail Polish Day was celebrated in 2017 with the hashtag #EssieLove
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge 2000+ days ago. Now we take turns creating prompts to share with you. Our hope is that creatives—children & adults—will use our prompts as springboards to word play time. If you join us in the Challenge, let us know by posting the title, a note, or if you want, the whole poem in the comments.
Click on Fishbowl link and sign up to receive email notifications from Kelly's blog (aka The Fishbowl):
All who subscribe, comment or share a poem will be entered in . . .
What Inspires Me? #17-Humans Who Serve
It’s Memorial Day! We say Happy Memorial Day? Bittersweet really. Originally known as “Decoration Day” a Springtime memorial ritual begun after the Civil War, Memorial Day was declared an official holiday in 1971, a day to honor humans who died while serving in the U.S. military.
For many of us, Memorial Day weekend is a joyful time heralding the beginning of summer fun, corn on the cob and potato salad, graduations, celebrations—and maybe that’s as it should be. For when we think our loved ones who served, isn’t that why they served? Why they sacrificed themselves, their liberty, their double scoop—to “ensure the blessing of liberty” for all of us. Humans for humanity.
Humans as in veterans who served in the military. And those who are serving now. Those humans who put their lives on hold to protect and defend our way of life. No matter what we (or they) may think about the politics of where and what battles they may be call into, they serve.
Today, while celebrating Memorial Day, I thought you might like to meet some veterans and learn their stories, collected by Brandon Stanton for his blog Humans of New York.
I first heard about Brandon Stanton and Humans of New York, listening to Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me! He was a guest of the quiz. Fascinated by his project—which has become quite a lucrative career—I dug deeper. Humans of New York began as a photography project in 2010.
Brandon’s “initial goal was to photograph 10,000 New Yorkers on the street and create an exhaustive catalogue of the city’s inhabitants.” Somewhere along the way, Brandan wrote, “I began to interview my subjects in addition to photographing them. And alongside their portraits, I'd include quotes and short stories from their lives.”
For the series “Invisible Wounds” Brandon interviewed veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Here is the link to view “Invisible Wounds.”
Happy Memorial Day!
Happy Memorial Day and thank you Veterans. You are not forgotten.
Poetry Challenge #245-Tap Happy
When I was a kid, my friend Valerie sat in her room for hours playing one song over and over and over again on her record player. Replaying the song was easy because the record only had one song per side (and Valerie only owned one “real” record). We replayed it until we knew every word by heart, and then replayed it to sing along. The song, Mr. Bojangles, written by Jerry Jeff Walker, about a homeless guy in jail, with a dog who died, who’d let go a laugh, shake back his clothes all around and dance for coins, was the saddest song we’d ever heard. Can’t recall ever flipping that 45 to the B-side. Why would we? Mr. Bojangles, dance…
And that’s what National Tap Dancing Day (May 25) is all about. Tap, which has its basis in African and Celtic dance was developed by slaves in the early 1800s. After the Civil War, tap dancing was popularized after the civil War by traveling minstrel shows and vaudeville, where performers like Bill Robinson, the original “Mr. Bojangles,” made everyone want to tap dance.
“Ginger Rogers did everything he [Fred Astaire] did, but she did it backwards and in heels.”
Poetry Challenge #245
Tap Happy
Tap dancing is all about the beats, the sounds. In celebration of National Tap Dance Day (May 25th) let’s see if we can’t use the beats in words to tap out a poem. Choose a poem to revise. A free verse poem might be a stretch—or a fun challenge. For purposes of this prompt, a poem with an established rhythm might be easiest.
Read the poem to yourself. Now, read it again, but this time, tap out the rhythm of the poem by tapping out the syllables with your feet, a pencil or clap your hand. Tap softly for unstressed syllables, harder for stressed syllables. Listen to the beats of the rhythm you’ve created.
Interestingly even in Free Verse we will subconsciously write rhythmically. Iambic meter, for instance, that repeated soft-hard/stressed-unstressed beats as in “I am. I am. I am…” Shakespeare favored, is close to how we speak naturally, which makes it easier to remember (they say.) Coincidentally, it’s iambic meter is also the rhythm of the heart. Buh-bump.
As you read, are you tapping soft-hard? Hard-soft hard-soft? Hard-hard-soft? Or some other combination entirely. Whatever it is, set that rhythm in your mind and see if you can’t rework a section of your poem with an ear to making it more rhythmic.
Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes
Start Writing!
Don’t Think About it! Keep the Beat!
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge 2000+ days ago. Now we take turns creating prompts to share with you. Our hope is that creatives—children & adults—will use our prompts as springboards to word play time. If you join us in the Challenge, let us know by posting the title, a note, or if you want, the whole poem in the comments.
Click on Fishbowl link and sign up to receive email notifications from Kelly's blog (aka The Fishbowl):
All who subscribe, comment or share a poem will be entered in . . .
Poetry Challenge #244-It's All Relatives
Call your brother! Text your cousin! Email Auntie Poopsie in Pookipsie… or pile into The Rattletrap Car and pay them a visit. Why? It’s National Visit Your Relatives Day!
National Visit Your Relatives Day (May 18th) encourages family members to stay connected. Our hectic lives make it easy to get so caught up in the busyness of today’s fast-paced lifestyle. It’s easy to fall out of contact with relatives. The observance reminds us to stop for a moment, take some much-needed time and visit those relatives we care about and have not seen or spoken to for a while.
“Gas up the old Ford, get out the road map
They got a head start about half a day ”
Poetry Challenge #244
It’s All Relatives
Write a poem about a gathering with relatives. It might be your actually relative—including crazy Aunt Pookie—or an imaginary gathering. Where would it be? What would y’all do? Say? Eat?
Add voice to the poem by writing it in the vernacular of the location. For example, if the gather is set on the Space Lab, sprinkle in space words or Martian speak.
For inspiration here are a few fabulous “Relative Gathering” books and Bonnie Raitt’s sassy tune: Papa Come Quick!
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge 2000+ days ago. Now we take turns creating prompts to share with you. Our hope is that creatives—children & adults—will use our prompts as springboards to word play time. If you join us in the Challenge, let us know by posting the title, a note, or if you want, the whole poem in the comments.
Click on Fishbowl link and sign up to receive email notifications from Kelly's blog (aka The Fishbowl):
All who subscribe, comment or share a poem will be entered in . . .
Poetry Challenge #243-The Fifth Dimension
“The Twilight Zone is a place that exists at any moment of time, of space or of mind.... but always when you least expect it.”
Happy Twilight Zone Day (May 11), a day obviously intended to be celebrated by ditching everything else and binge watching the vintage TV program, The Twilight Zone, created, written, and narrated by Rod Serling (which we all thought was “Sterling”). It premiered on October 1, 1959. Each episode was a story—sci fi, fantasy, suspense—which took place in “The 5th Dimension*”—the Twilight Zone. The show aired from 1959-1964. A spin-off is called Night Gallery.
“Do-do-do-do do-do-do-do do-do-do-do ”
Poetry Challenge #243
The Fifth Dimension
Your challenge, if you’re willing to go there, is to write a poem about something that can only happen at twilight, whether it be the twilight of the now, or the twilight of some other space or time.
And, as an homage to The Twilight Zone, see if you can’t add a suspenseful whats-going-to-happen tone to your poem.
For inspiration, dial your mind into the Twilight Zone Theme Song: do-do-do-do do-do-do-do do-do-do-do . . .
Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes
Start Writing!
Don’t Think About it, just do it!
*Is this where the pop group “The Fifth Dimension” got its name? Will You Marry Me Bi-ill…
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge 2000+ days ago. Now we take turns creating prompts to share with you. Our hope is that creatives—children & adults—will use our prompts as springboards to word play time. If you join us in the Challenge, let us know by posting the title, a note, or if you want, the whole poem in the comments.
Click on Fishbowl link and sign up to receive email notifications from Kelly's blog (aka The Fishbowl):
All who subscribe, comment or share a poem will be entered in . . .
Honoring a Life: Adele Hutchinson Bennett
My dear mother-in-law, Adele Hutchinson Bennett, passed a few days ago, at 89, with her mind and spirit saying “Yes! Yes!” as always. Her body and heart were plum worn out after a full adventurous life filled with music, travel, drama, and love. Her 4 children, Curtis, Liz, Paul & Marilyn were with her. Mom, Oma, Nana, Gramma Adele to her 4 children, 5 grandchildren and 7 great grandchildren, will live on in ferocious card games and raucous laughter.
Here’s Adele with the gang at her 89th birthday celebration in Galveston, Oct 2021.
It was May 4th a day nationally recognized as Star Wars Day—as in “May the Force Be With You” and Adele was a force! “Come Fly Away” will be her send off song during a Memorial Service on May 7th, held at St. Luke Methodist in Bryan, Texas.
Yes, Adele was known to swerve upon sighting hawks on the hunt!
Fittingly, May 4th is National Bird Day. Adele was an avid birder—raptors being her passion. She traveled throughout the world to bird trips—and highways, much to other drivers potential peril. As a subscriber to The Fishbowl, you may have tried the May 4th 7-Minute Challenge “This One’s For the Birds.” Make that “for Adele.”
When I write “traveled the world” I am not kidding. The photos below were taken when Adele came to Indonesia to visit, she said “to see us” but it wasn’t long before she was off in search of the Javan Eagle. The one of Adele was taken in the Tea Plantations north of Jakarta, the other is of the guides and on the far right, our driver Aan, who escorted Adele on what was a trip of a lifetime—hers & his. Yes! There were eagles!
I will be taking the week to celebrate this lovely loving woman and a life well lived. The next 7-Minute Challenge will post May 11th. If, between now and then, you notice a wild bird—and I hope you do—say “Would you look?”