73 years and counting!

I turned 73 today. Hard for me to believe. My Dad is 97 and still alive and well with Alzheimer’s. I don’t really want to get like that. We have the same conversation 5 or 6 times in one phone call. It’s wonderful to live long and he can feed and dress himself and enjoys watching tv. He loves baseball and I could never stand it. I’m not even sure he can see the ball but he talks the game for sure. When I was little he would give me his ball glove and he bought a catchers mitt for himself. His glove, not only didn’t fit me well early on, but it was really old fashioned and the center of the glove where the ball impacted was right in my palm. He would get me to play catch which wasn’t too bad but when he threw the ball back, it kept getting harder and harder. As I grew, I was able to tolerate it and about that time, the new style gloves came out, with a webbing between the thumb and index finger (like a first baseman’s mitt). It would have been so nice but he wouldn’t let me get one…he wanted me to build up the callous or whatever in my palm. He wanted so bad for me to be a pitcher and I was just not enthused by it. I ended up quitting baseball with his ok but it was unusual. I was on a baseball team, and said if I struck out so-and-so…the top hitter for Seminole…I could quit baseball. Dad wasn’t at the game, but I did strike him out and I went home and threw the glove down and said I’m done. He said, he didn’t realize I disliked it so bad but accepted it. I played catch a few more times but soon was off on other adventures. Kind of an odd strong memory for me.
Dad was an avid hunter and fisherman and I was brought up pretty much on wild meat which to me was great. I loved it and loved hunting and fishing. I only sincerely wish I was into photography during that time because I saw some awesome sights. One day, I was going down the stairs from home to go to school and here comes Dad up the stairs in his hunting gear. He had been coon hunting with Howard Shaffer. He said you won’t believe…the dogs treed a coon in a hemlock tree (they have a lot of thick branches). He went up the tree after the coon, but quickly said “Howard get up here”. Howard said ah, go ahead and shoot it and I’ll get it here. Dad said “Howard get up here now”….Howard climbed the tree and they spent the rest of the night as far up the tree as they could go, just below the cub and the momma bear stayed down at the bottom till morning when they were able to get away..and that’s why he was just now coming home from hunting.
What would You write and remember at age 73? I can only hope my memory will stick around and let me finish this for my kids. The rest of you, I’ll probably bore the crap out of. 🙂