Cooler Weather

T’was loverly to wake up to cool weather this morning. Our lake was clouded with the steam rising from the water. Autumn is on its way.

By the time we got to the Benton softball field at 4:30, however, it was plenty hot with the sun coming straight into our eyes as the visiting fans faced west. It was hot Tuesday at Carterville also--the sun really baked the back of our lawn chairs that day as we faced east. And yesterday at Johnston City was not much better facing north. We hope the conference tourney up at Sesser this weekend will be cooler no matter what direction we face.

I won’t get to go to the tourney on Saturday, for I will be at the Writers Guild table at the Women’s Health Conference with Sharon Robinson, Pat Evans, and others as we sell our Guild’s anthologies and as authors sell their books. As so often happens, I would like to be two or three people. I would love to be able to attend the wonderful sessions at the conference as well as also be at Sesser at the tourney watching Geri Ann pitch.

Today’s game was a bummer. For some reason, the Benton coaches decided to not use their best pitcher. Or at least that is what we were told by our lawn chair neighbors when we arrived a little late. They also told us our other pitcher had been hit and had a bump the size of a softball on her forehead! (We were late because Gerald had been helping his brother figure his corn yields that Garry started harvesting in the Mississippi bottoms today.) Even with Johnston City putting in plenty of substitutes, the score was 20 to 0 in three innings.

I realize that often a fan does not understand why decisions are made as they are. But it was disappointing to drive all the way to Benton and expect to have a team play their best and instead to be embarrassed by such a lopsided score even if it was in our favor. Ah well.