"With a Conscience" - " Baseball, Hot dogs, Soggy Fries and Thou...."

                Baseball, Hot dogs, Soggy Fries and Thou....

"These old ballparks are like cathedrals in America. We don't have big old Gothic cathedrals like they do in Europe. But we got baseball parks." - Jimmy Buffet

I have no interest in sports for the most part...really, I mean, I have just never found them interesting except for the "Superbowl" and I think that's because I get to eat chicken wings and nachos and well cold beer.  Sorry...but when one sees the exorbitant salaries of most pro-athletes, and yet, we are still arguing about policeman, emergency medical technicians, nurses and teacher salaries...well I just can't go there.

Then a miracle happened. The Dutchess Stadium was up and running and there was actual baseball taking place and wow, they offered fireworks!  My sister, my husband, my nephew and my brother-in-law bought tickets. And thus, the fun really began.  The tickets were inexpensive...$7.50 a ticket or so but then...we saved up our calories for foot longs, Blue Moon beers with orange slices, soggy fries and well, all of a sudden, all of us, were in heaven. We stood and listened to the National Anthem.  We did the chicken dance. We banged on bleachers as the Renegades' pitcher pitched along with the sound of a locomotive engine sounding it's horn.  We made complete idiots out of ourselves and boy, did we so love each other.

The fireworks came afterwords and I remember kissing my soon to be husband passionately as the first fireworks started.  My sister looked at me with love and my brother in law, well, he was just ecstatic with the whole evening.  Boy did we laugh.

I don't think any of us cared who won that the first game.  It wasn't important and five to six years later, it still isn't. We go to the stadium, and well, we sweat, we eat all the wrong things and we laugh.  We have gone ever since, rain or shine and we meet at the stadium gate, hug each other, and well, we just feel the freedom.  We collectively, feel free to enjoy each other, warts and all,  and it's joyful.

When you go to the local baseball stadium, you see all kinds of people getting together with their loved ones and no one seems to care about anything other than having fun. It's just the way it is and how thankful we all have been, each year to go.

What started out as just a quick get together is now a tradition.    A family connection we all made quite by accident but which continues to bring us together, each summer, rain or shine, with  foot longs in hand, the chilled air, autumn and winter and further family reunions soon to come...