WAITING FOR LEFTY

         It's my day to apply the neatsfoot oil to my boots, and it’s also the day the dog gets her heartworm medicine. I know that it is time for the pill because the little red sticker on the calendar tells me so, but I’d forgotten about the footwear until a deep voice from a berry bush intoned, IT'S TIME YOU PUT SOME MORE OIL ON THOSE BOOTS'

         The bush did not go up in flames, but following the admonition seemed wise, lest some old man with a white beard come down the road and yell at me. Rather than the bearded gentleman, it would probably be the woman at Brown’s Shoe Store that sold them to me last winter. "The boots are not waterproof in themselves, but they will keep your feet dry as long as you treat them with occasional applications of neatsfoot oil.” Strangely the shoe store did not sell the oil. “You can buy it at any tack shop,” but when I didn’t find Horses R'Us in the phone book, I settled on Sam W's emporium. Let me correct myself; Brown’s is an 'emporium', Sam's place is a 'mart'.

         As I applied the oil, its odor brought back my youth. I used the same stuff on my Rawlings’ Stan Musial baseball glove. That glove lives in the same carrel of my memory as Billy Hamilton, though if I think about it, Billy moved away before I was given that wonderful piece of leather.

         Prior to its arrival, I had to use an old mitt handed down by my Uncle Bill. It was almost flat, without a 'pocket.' Some said that it was used to play softball, but I always suspected this story to be pure hokum; I’d seen photos of ballplayers in the pre-Ruthian era wearing gloves like these. Little did it matter. To the Billy Hamilton’s of the world, what you wore on your hand was immaterial as long as he and his ilk won the game at hand.

         I met him the first day we moved into the house; he lived next door. We played a game of handball on our back lot. Billy narrowly won, 106-8. From then on, whether we played handball, stickball, hose ball, half ball, wire ball, there were only two unwritten rules: Billy wins, and the game ends when Billy hits the ball where it can't be retrieved. He had a natural uppercut swing and delighted in 'roofing' our plaything. The neighbors whose downspouts would clog from the balls stuck in them were not as happy, but this did not stop Billy. He continued his torment of me and the neighbors until he grew old enough to discover pink shirts, pegged pants and cigarettes, but not necessarily in that order.

         It was about that time I talked my mother into buying me a real baseball glove, the Stan Musial model. Stan was Billy's hero, but that wasn't the reason I chose it. By then I knew Billy and I were different from other males: WE WERE LEFT-HANDED. The Stan Musial model was the only glove the sporting good shop had that fit my hand.

         Growing up, I had this theory that emulating Billy Hamilton was the reason I was
left-handed. I couldn’t remember playing baseball before I met Billy. He lent me his glove and showed me how to play, or play well enough to lose, but as life plodded on, I discarded this idea. If it were Billy’s fault, why did I kick with my left foot? Billy did not teach me that; the only time I saw him kick anything was the day I won a game from him. His foot drove a hole in his father’s wooden garage door.

         Mysteries abound. I write, eat, comb my vanishing hair, shave, and use a hammer with my right hand, but when Uncle Sam came to call, I went to the rifle range straight from the golf course, where I swung as a 'righty,' and began firing my M14 from the port side. I formed the theory that writing, using a screwdriver and shaving take some dexterity and use of the fingers, but if this is true, why do I drive a car primarily with my left hand? What a horror! I can't join that male ritual of putting an elbow on the door frame and arm out the window, but I find it natural to drive my 5-speed with my manipulative right hand on the gearshift, my dominant left foot on the clutch pedal and my left hand on the steering.

         Billy Hamilton was followed by Mike The Pigeon, a friend of late teenage years. Mike taught me the finer points of basketball and the advantages of using both hands, so that I learned to drive and shoot with either hand, but as I began to use both hands, I discovered that I preferred to drive to my right and not to my more natual left.

         Oh, am I boring you to death with this discussion of my wonderful hands? Like so many split personalities, I am absolutely fascinated with myself, the left-handed me, the right-handed me, the cross-handed me. I can hear you now: "Shut up, shut up, JUST SHUT UP OR I'LL MAKE YOU DRINK THAT BLOODY NEATSFOOT OIL.” No one understands me, but I get the message. I’ll slink away in silence. Maybe I'll call Billy and see if he wants to play a game of Parcheesi.

Valatie December 8, 2000