piccolo plays baseball with the kids.

When I die and have to try bullshit my way past St. Peter, I think I’ve got a pretty good ace in the hole.

Last summer a young man was walking up the street and saw me and came up to me. I recognized him. He was no longer a kid. He was now a young man.

We had a cold one on the porch together and shared a good laugh over something that happened years ago.

About a decade ago, Neighbor Bob used to get home early and the two of us would drop in on kids playing baseball in the nearby vacant lot.

The kids got a boot out of watching us two old goats trying to strike each other out, as we’d both put ourselves on opposite teams to keep things fair.

So anyway, it was the bottom of the 9th, we were two down, two outs and the bases were loaded and the Mighty Piccolo was at bat.

Neighbor Bob was pitching and he knew I never swung on the first pitch.

So he threw a slow ball, and I fooled him when I clouted it out of the park.

It went straight through the neighborhood grouch’s window.
Now, part of the duty of being a responsible adult is stepping up and accepting responsibility for one’s actions and setting a responsible example.

However, the rules for sandlot baseball supersede everything in this case.

In the index of the unwritten rules for sandlot baseball, there is a section under the letter ‘W’. See ‘Windows, broken’.

Under that passage, it clearly states that if a sweet little old lady gets her window broken; all players will rake her leaves and mow her lawn until the debt is paid. Overpayment can be settled up with home made pies, cookies and lemonade.

Under subpart B, it clearly states that if the ball breaks the window belonging to the neighborhood grouch, all players will run like hell.

We all took off like a shot, of course, as we take the rules seriously.

Shortly thereafter, Neighbor Bob, who is in the glass business, approached the neighbor and fixed the window and ‘accidentally’, forgot to bill him.

Of course, that did nothing to appease the old bastard and he raised holy hell and demanded to find out who the culprit was.

The neighborhood kids were starting to get sweated and pressured to give the culprit up, but they didn’t.

One kid was told that if he didn’t tell who broke the window that he wasn’t going to camp. Neighbor Bob and I fixed that one. We approached the father as a team and told him that he ought to lay off the kid.

He balked, and I pointed out that not all of the mischief caused on Halloween was caused by children and that there was a lot of highway yellow paint missing from the DPW barn.

Neighbor Bob then asked the guy why 2 guys in their late 40s would go to bat for a 12 year old kid.

The father saw the light and the kid got to go to camp.

Still, the fact remains, that we knew the kid would have kept his mouth shut and lost out. He was not alone, not one single kid ratted me out.

The secret lasted until a couple of years ago when the old grouch died.

The very fact that the kids thought so highly of me that they didn’t squeal on me is one of the highest honors I have ever received.

I’ll bet you two to one that St. Peter will buy it.



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Ever notice whose house gets hit on Halloween?
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Another epistle from the Gospel According to Piccolo.