Cross Country: Making Jack Proud

Little League was just a ruse to mask my addiction to Big League Chew. When it came time for the annual little league lottery I was selected by the Sodom Tigers, an expansion team in a small town nearly twenty-five miles from my house. The Rotary and Gore teams held down a yearly rotating monopoly on the Adirondack Division Championship and in an unsuccessful antitrust adventure the Division created two other teams in the town of Johnsburg, The Tigers and The Wildcats. Our teams shared a brand new diamond in the town of Sodom while the champs split time at the field in North Creek. The draft was a setup from the beginning, coaches had been scouting talent from the days of t-ball and even though it was noted in the Enterprise, the small circulation free weekly paper, that the draft was based purely on pulls of numbers from a hat, each team in order, four players at a time, followed by four players at a time, Gore and Rotary always ended up with the future superstars of the Johnsburg Jaguars baseball team. I was drafted out of pity. My scouting report detailed my fascination with random wildflowers and dandelions that grew in the right field of the t-ball track. Perhaps it touched on my all-consuming passion for the small one scoop free ice cream cones that we enjoyed after every game at Stewarts. Or, maybe it talked about how I would sneak my way out of the dugout mid-inning, I was always warming the pine, to buy some penny candy at the parking lot concession stand.

With my advancement to the bush leagues came a new found love of Big League Chew, the plain flavored shredded gum, that came in the foil, resealable pouch decorated with a juiced up Mark McGwire look-a-like cartoon character. After a thorough trouncing from the Dunkley family clan, who fielded generations of Rotary team players, I asked coach if Kyle had been dipping the entire game. During a trip to pick up some Kit Kat bars in the fifth I thought I spied Kyle picking tobacco out of a pouch, placing a wad in his cheek. Maybe that was how he hit all those home runs I thought. Coach said he wasn’t dipping, that was just Big League Chew. I just had to have some. Everyone wanted to be like Kyle.

Stores these days just aren’t the same. Coca Cola has a new soft drink product that hits the market every time I made a pit stop on my recent drive from Los Angeles to upstate NY, but I couldn’t find a pouch of the Chew anywhere. 2,876 miles coast to coast. Thirty six hours. One shattered moon roof. Two moments of panic when I thought I had run out of gas. Three blinding rainstorms. Ten green apples and a few hundred roasted almonds. Eleven diet cokes (new flavor Coke Plus included) and no pouches of Big League Chew.

I stuck Little League out through three years of a .078 batting average and numerous fielding errors. After playing one year of modified baseball in the seventh grade I promptly switched to tennis the following year. Maybe this was Big League Chew’s revenge.

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They call Montana big sky country. I think Texas deserves the title. Out the driver side window at 75 miles per hour.


Somewhere in New Mexico. A train on a fast moving horizon.


Delmar - The water is fine! C'mon in.


I was tired and so I stopped for some rest and relaxation.


That is my car on an empty strech of the real Route 66 somewhere in eastern California. I stopped to take a photograph of the trailer below.

I couldn't figure out the last time this had been used although there were piles of rotting clothes inside. I didn't see another living soul for sixty miles in either direction.

you are the air in my lungs and i smoke a lot

Whole Foods should be called Whole Paycheck, aptly. As wives wandered the isles filling their shopping carts with vegan treats and soy alternatives, whilst sipping on their non-fat mocha soy chai lattes I checked prices and cost per ounces. An entire cart would be worth $150 based on my advanced calculations so I stuck to the hand basket.

“How are you today?”

“Good, just out spending my husband’s hard earned money?”

“Oh!?! Sounds good!”

“Sure is! Oh and did I tell you I’m working on a script right now with my free time!”

Somehow Whole Foods has regulars, people who can consistently afford $150 carts of overpriced organic food. Don’t get me wrong, I like naturally produced and procured foods, but I can’t afford it. I managed to get away today with three bags (paper, never plastic) of sundries today.

The list included:
1.51lb package of baby carrots
2.5lb large white peaches
1lb organic spring mix (with rocket!)
2.37lb red grapefruit
tofurkey sausage
1 dozen organic free-range eggs
jalapeño garlic hummus
roasted almonds (7.99 for the smallest amount of almonds ever)
5 boxes of organic 365 alfredo mac and cheese
1 can black eye peas
2 cans organic black beans
pita chips
pirates booty, cheddar flavored
frozen veggie okra patties
frozen okra

This cost $50.55. Had I shopped with the same reckless abandon applied at normal supermarkets I could have easily melted my credit card on swipe.

Pretty soon the clock will start running forward. Seconds will pass in half the time it would take normally and the world will begin blurring by in wide aperture settings. The light will soften and the days will grow longer, evenings drawing out while crowds fill thousands of empty seats that the day before were home to thousands of others who drank beer, spilled popcorn and combined their voices in song. Their sound will remind us that we are all human and that we all want to be remembered and loved. And I’ll listen to it and wonder how I fit in.

The reality is that I don’t know any reality anymore. I’m a wandering soul. The euphemism goes that while you may not be lost, it’s just that you aren’t found. I’m lost and I’m not found. But, I am open to both of those things happening. Any time. Any time now.