Once Upon a Time in My Life

foul ball

Growing up, my family lived in a basement apartment in my Nanny Temple's house. It was a tiny apartment but the one salvation was the huge backyard we had.

When I was 11 or so, it was monstrous.

We used to play baseball on the side of the house, using a soft rubber ball, much like the hockey balls they have now.

As I remember, they were orange in color as well.

This one particular day, we were playing ball. I remember I was pitching and a friend of mine Ross, was at bat.

I threw the ball, Ross swung.

But instead of hitting the ball in fair territory, he managed somehow to almost hit the ball directly sideways...

The ball sailed pass my Nanny's house ...

Over the apple tree ...

Over the plum tree ...

and into the tall grass that was at the boarder of the front and backyards.

No big deal.

Happened a million times before.

As always, we all ran to the spot where we figured the ball landed and we started looking for the ball.

Ten of us walking through the knee deep geas, looking for an orange ball.

Simple enough task.

15 minutes later...

no ball ...

20 minutes later ...

no ball ...

30 minutes later ...

Well you get the picture.

Finally we gave up and went on doing something else, as kids would.

We would simply pool our pennies the next day and buy a new ball.

That night while I slept, I had the strangest dream.

I could see us playing ball.

I saw me pitch the ball.

I saw Ross hit the ball.

But then I saw things through what I could only figure was the ball's point of view.

I felt like I was flying.

Pass Nanny's house ...

Over the apple tree ...

Over the plum tree ...

and into the tall grass.

But with one difference.

I saw the ball nestle under a huge clump of grass, near a ditch that ran between our yard and my neighbour's.

There it stayed.

The next morning when I went outside, several of my friends were back in the grass, looking for the ball.

I remember my cousin, Dale, saying, "It's no use Billy. We can't find the ball anywhere."

I started to look, but then remembered the dream I had the night before.

I walked away from the others, closer to the ditch.

There was a huge clump of grass.

I knelt down, pushed the long grass aside ....

and there it was.

Right where I had seen it in my dream.

"Billy got the ball," someone yelled.

We didn't have to pool our pennies. We had found the ball.

That dream started a life long love of dreams that stays with me, even to this day.