One morning I was standing outside the barracks in the company area waiting for morning recall formation when one of the guys from another platoon came running by and purposely knocked my hat off my head. I must confess that I probably deserved that cheap shot on two counts. First, said soldier had been the brunt of my rather warped sense of humor the day before, after he had buried a tracked vehicle, nose first, into a pond when he ran off the road (but that’s another story). And, second, I always wore my hat perched back on my head with the brim pointed into the air until it was time for formation. Having my hat perched back on my head made it an easy target for him to knock off my head. The wind was also cooperating with him that day, so it promptly took my hat sailing causing me to give chase. Definitely not my idea of shits and giggles. By the time I recovered my hat, said perpetrator was 50 feet away from me and moving fast. I had no chance of catching him on foot, so I looked around for possible projectiles. Rocks! Perfect. Lots of rocks. Now, all I had to do was select a few just the right size and weight. Three should do it. Perfect. I wound up and let the first rock fly, and I nailed my target with a direct hit on the ass. Outstanding in the rain. I wound up and let the second one rip, and, again, I scored a direct hit on my target’s ass. He let out a loud yelp and started rubbing his butt cheeks. I immediately wound up and let the third one fly. You guessed it. Strike three. Straight down the pipe. Direct hit. This time, he really let out a yelp and stopped running. Alas, no good deed goes unnoticed. SFC Peterson, a platoon sergeant from one of the other platoons yelled at me, “Masters. May I have a word with you, private.” Great, just what I needed. He probably didn’t even see the other jerk knock my hat off. That’s Tom Tee-riffic. As I walked over to SFC Peterson, I started my alibi, “You see sarge, it’s like this. It wasn’t my fault. Pvt Johnson knocked my hat off into the dirt and made me chase it. He did it on purpose. I couldn’t let him just get away with it.” “What? Nah. I don’t give two shits about that. Where the hell did you learn to throw like that?” “Like what, sarge?” “The way you did. You just picked up three rocks and threw them at him one after the other in quick succession, and you hit him square in the ass with all three shots. How the hell did you do that?” “Oh, that. Well, you see, I don’t think I could’ve hit him with say five so I only threw three. I was pretty sure I could hit him with three.” “What???” “Yeah, It’s pretty simple actually.” “But he was running away from you.” “Sure. But it was more or less a straight line. Now, if he had started dodging and weaving. Well, then, I might actually have missed.” “I still don’t get how you pulled that off. Most people can’t throw that well.” “Oh, I see. Well, sarge, I used to pitch baseball in high school. You know. Legion baseball. And I pitched in little league. Of course, I’m kind of rusty now. That’s why I don’t think I could’ve hit him with say five rocks.” “Well, the reason I’m asking is because you’ve got a hell of an arm and I coach a women’s softball team. We need a pitcher. I think you’d be great for the job.” “Softball? I don’t know, sarge. I’m kind of busy and I’ve never pitched softball before.” “I did mention that it’s a women’s team, right?” “Yeah, I believe you mentioned that.” “Well, think of the possibilities, Masters.” “So, when did you say your practices are?” I thought, “What the hell, things might just work out. And he did say it was a Women’s team. What could go wrong?” You have no idea. None at all. Not a clue. I showed up for the first practice, and I was in for a rude awakening. It was the worst kind of softball. Slow-pitch softball. The absolute worst kind of softball to pitch. Why? Because you have to lob the ball up into the air in a huge arc and make it come down in between the shoulders and waist of the batter at a relatively slow speed. Not a skill I possess. Not now, or at any time in the past, for that matter. Then, there was the small problem of the women. It seemed that the only two women that would have anything to do with me were preachers’ daughters with all of the baggage that entails. Yeah. No. Absolutely not. My mom had always tried to hook me up with the daughter of this preacher back in my home town. That never worked out at all. Her idea of a date was hanging out at the church and singing songs. No thank you. My idea of fun was drinking beer and raising hell with the gang. I only lasted at the softball field pitching for two days before I realized it was just another exercise in futility.
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