Good Old Days: City Recreation

by Mildred Olson

It was long before the days of cities well organized with excellent recreation programs. Long before T-Ball, P-Nut, Fox, Filly leagues, and multiple others. And long before registration fees were required of the participants.

It seems volunteers were accepted without all the extreme background checks. Of course, the town was much smaller then, and willing fathers or interested former high school athletes supervised the baseball games. This about constituted the summer recreation program. Baseball.

Her son had been given a baseball mitt and was anxious and excited to get to the field, where they would be playing. His dad was happy to drive him and see that the coach could place him on the team.

His mother was planning to get a great deal done while they were gone. But within about a half an hour, they were back. The boy had been hit just above his right eye and a huge bump about the size of a baseball ended his enthusiasm and desire to be a baseball player. He put the mitt away and never used it again.

As he grew older, that eye always bothered him, but an optometrist claimed there was no damage.

Those were the good old days.