Last Times

The last time.

We would meet nearly every morning in the summer. No text messaging, cell phone calls or twitter announcements were required, you simply showed up. In the days before video or on-line games, uber-organized youth sports and helicopter parents the kids in my neighborhood participated in something called going out to play. For this particular activity – which we called T-ball (not to be confused with the hit-the-ball-off-of-a-pole version of T-ball 6 year-olds play) – all that was required was a solid wall, baseball glove, bat, sneakers, a few tennis balls and a bike to escape on. We had in youth then what so few of us as adults possess now – time, energy and an enthusiasm to just go.

T-ball was simple. At the high school the macadam playground was enclosed on one end by a large brick barrier on whose other side apparently housed the school library – but that was still several years and a million miles away from torturing us. This wall was quickly transformed into a backstop by a shaky rectangular chalk outline of the strike zone scrawled on its surface. A pitcher, batter and fielders were quickly chosen up – no catcher was required as the wall caromed back with a satisfying “thwump” from the Wilson tennis balls that had seen better days and most likely, more proper usage. It wasn’t pure baseball – which we also played, but that was the afternoon city league, this was our own league – and we launched into a different version of the then national pastime (the pastime now appears to be poker, NASCAR, World of Warcraft or maybe Thursday night football). The tennis ball was hurled towards the batter, who either missed or hit it and depending on the hit was rewarded with a simple point system – grounders, liners past second, solid shots to the chain link fence or, best of all, pure connections that arched over the fence and into the yards and flower beds of the houses across the street. They all had their corresponding numerical value. Three strikes was still an out and three outs signified everyone switching positions.

Thus the summer mornings passed and hours were consumed by this game. Points were added up, arguments ensued and the beginnings of testosterone test flights took off where the dialogue and game became half comedy show and half contest. All of this combined to make the ritual one of the more satisfying memories I have from my childhood.

And at some point it stopped.

There came a day when it was the last time we played T-ball. I can’t remember how or why it ended and I’m sure none of us knew when we walked off the schoolyard on that particular day that it would be the last time. Everyday rituals you think will last forever all have end points that get lost in the shadows of onrushing time. Other events and routines take over but rarely are we conscious of the fact that it’s the last time. Last times fascinate and haunt me. Did Claude Monet know that was his last brush stroke? Did Carl Sandburg know that was the last poem? Did my mother know it was the last lunch she would pack for me? I’m not speaking of sudden death or ultimate finality here – my mother is doing just fine thank you – but the everyday occurrences that we do all the time that have an ending, a last time, but where ending’s specificity was elusive.

Of course, some last times are definable. As a senior in high school or college the last time is indelibly marked by promises to always remain friends, grand ceremonies, pictures, videos and usually a large meal with family. Weddings are similar as the commitment marks the last time – well, for 50% of us anyway – that you are just you. The pronoun “we” dramatically becomes the operative descriptor of your life. The birth of your first child further evolves even that definition. Last times are often hard to reconcile. Retirements mark the end of careers and it’s nervous fascination that overcomes me as I see how those individuals come to grips with gold watches and the melancholy of knowing that their last time professionally is approaching juxtaposed with the freedom they will soon hopefully enjoy.

Athletes struggle with the last time more so than other professions I believe – the Brett Farve saga being the current exhibit A. Barring a career ending injury, Troy Polamalu knows that there is a day out there where he will pull off the number 43 for the last time. Walking away from something you were among the best in the world at doing has to be a singularly difficult – and for most of us – unfamiliar experience. But there’s a clarity there that is missing in the everyday last times.

Plus those events can also be beginnings – you’re entering a new phase of your life as much as leaving one behind and these kinds of signature moment last times can be counted on one hand usually. It’s the everyday where the mystery endings occur and that collectively do more to create and define who we are and who we become.

We - all of us - lead legacy lives. We’re simply – most of the time – oblivious to that fact. Presidents, musicians, actors, writers and athletes are not the only stewards of legacy nor do they affect us as significantly. Our commonplace beginnings and endings influence in small increments and the collective body of work we all produce has a profound effect on both our selves and the people in our orbits. When we end one chapter or venture and begin to explore new arenas we continue to shape and chisel away at the sculpture that our life becomes. The endings allow for new surfaces to emerge.

Youth denied me the ability to be cognizant of more of these day-to-day last times in my early life - we are in such a hurry then. Perhaps the real value here is to simply embrace and recognize them at some point. I’m 48 and I haven’t thought about those T-ball games in over 3 decades but I now appreciate and acknowledge what the banter, activity and sounds of that summer began to embed in me – the ability to explore, argue, bond and to gain some athletic coordination. All have been further honed (well, in the case of athletic coordination - beginning to deteriorate slightly) and have become useful characteristics personally and professionally.


The recognition radar is a little sharper now as age and experience progress inexorably forward. I feel a sense of déjà vu as I try to remember the last shoulder ride I gave my daughters or the last real excited greeting I received from them for simply coming home from work. There was a moment at dinner on our deck late this summer when the four of us were together talking after the meal was over and I had a palpable sense wash over me that this specific kind of moment was about to end. One kid was leaving college soon and one was going to be entering college next year. Significant others, far away jobs and grandchildren seemed to be looming in the not too distant future and would soon populate our family mosaic. It felt like a last time.

Possibly it was. I’ll recognize, enjoy and embrace it at some point.