I have been playing softball since I was old enough to swing
a bat. My mom played, my sisters played, I played, it was a family thing we all
got involved in and for the most part I had a pretty good time. I played
percussion from the sixth grade through tenth grade for my school band and I absolutely
loved it, mostly it was the people that really made band for me, especially in
high school, but I did love playing the instrument as well. Now you may be
asking yourself, how do these things have anything to do with each other? For
me, they are both things I quit before the time had come for me to be ‘too hold’.
They are also both things that I forgot how much I loved, missed and actually
cared about.
Like I said, softball was a family thing and I’ve played for
longer than I can remember. I have always been a pretty good player, with all those
years of experience I gained some really decent skills. I’m a boss at in
fielding, I can do outfield, but I’m not awesome at it(too much running) and
once I get used to it and if I don’t sike myself out, I’m a decent batter(not
so much slow-pitch, but fast-pitch I like to think I’m much better at it). Unfortunately
for me, Havre City League Fastpitch is dominated by one family, and if you’re
not a part of that family, well you’re basically boned! I think you can take a
wild guess that I’m not a part of that family. For the most part I dealt with
it, I mean you just kind of get used to it after a while, but one year I kind
of let them get to me. See, the mother of that family went out of her way to
ask my mom if I would join the traveling team, and I figured ‘why not? Don’t
have anything better to do.’ After joining, paying, practicing and everything,
working just as hard as every one of my teammates and being just as good if not
better than some of them, I sat the bench. It wasn’t even I sat the bench for one game
and then I got to play; nope I sat the bench for two whole tournaments. Needless
to say, I didn’t rejoin the team again the next year, although every year the
same woman went out of her way to ask my mom to try and get me to play that
year…no thanks. If that didn’t piss me off enough, the favoritism this family
played for each other ended up ruining the entire league, no one wanted to play
because there was always the one team that was completely stacked and every
other team was bad. Then the one year they apparently didn’t realize they
stacked another team more than their own; they canceled the city tournament basically
because they knew they weren’t going to win. That was my last year playing, granted
I will say that it was also the summer before my senior year, but I still could
have played the summer after as well, but it was just a big joke so why bother?
This past summer, I played again. One of my friends needed a
girl to fill in on this co-ed slow pitch softball tournament so I figured why
not? I didn’t have anything better to do that weekend, and I don’t mind helping
out a friend. So I went, I played, we lost (a lot) but it was a good time. I
had forgotten how much I loved softball thanks to city league being such shit,
but playing again, even on a losing team, I still had a relatively good time. I
also filled in for another team who was short girls and that wasn’t as fun,
their head player was an asshole, but I still had a fun time playing. I ended
up playing in a badball tournament later that summer. Badball is softball but
you run the bases backwards, you are put on completely random teams (drawn out
of a hat), and then your positions are pulled out of a hat as well. That was a
real blast! It sucked because I ended up playing outfield a lot, which we
covered I’m bad at, but I still had a good time, not to mention I had a good
team. My sister and my friend (the one I helped out on the first tournament)
were on the same team; yea my team kicked their team’s ass! I had a really
good, positive team the first day and for the most part on the second day,
although on the second day they were all hungover so we ended up losing out,
but it was still a good time. But I forgot how much I loved softball and I
might actually have to thank my friend for helping me remember how much I do
love the sport (although, I’ll never give him that satisfaction to his face, he’ll
have to read this, so I think I’m good).
As far as percussion goes, here is the short story. I
started playing percussion (drums) when I was in sixth grade, I originally started
playing because a boy I liked said he was going to (please note, he lied to
me). After playing them for a while, I actually really enjoyed playing them. I
was so prepared to be a full-fledged band geek all through high school. This changed
when I met David Johnke, the high school band director. David is a trumpet
player, who spent most of my freshman year letting the current juniors and
seniors teach the younger kids how to play. Then sophomore year he decided to
have two different percussion classes, advanced and intermediate. Upperclassmen
were advanced, lowerclassmen were intermediate and I personally didn’t really learn
anything from Johnke that year. All he did was get mad at me because my pinkies
naturally stick out and they were supposed to curve in, although that never effected
my playing in any sense of the word. Then he would get mad at me when I would
state my opinion on things, granted I was kind of a smart ass sometimes, but I
never felt that I crossed the line and I think if I had I probably would have
gotten in to more trouble, but I didn’t so I think I’m good. However, I always
just felt like he was just rude to me. He was one of those teachers who picked
favorites and I wasn’t one of them. He would get mad at me when I would point
out the obvious and I always felt like he was extremely unprofessional when it
came to dealing with me. Like I said, I was kind of a dick sometimes and
instead of ignoring me like a teacher should, or dealing with it in another
manner, he turned into a teenager and tried to be all ‘cool’ about it. Frankly
he became just as big of a dick as I was being (is this an everywhere music
teacher thing?). I have never really been one to quit things but at the end of
my sophomore year, I quit band and discovered that when he realized I was
quitting Johnke was much nicer to me, but it was too late to make me come back.
Now that I am in college, I am realizing that since I don’t have to deal with
this asshole anymore, that maybe I can get involved more in the things I used to
love. Next semester I am joining the
university band in hopes of finding a band director who isn’t trying to relive
his glory days. I have seen how much fun the people in band have here at UND,
and I remember how much fun band used to be for me. Watching them and listening
to them makes me miss percussion, so I really hope this whole thing works out
for me.
I guess the moral of this long post, is to never give up
what you love. Although there may be people who suck and make it hard to be involved,
don’t forget what you love and don’t give up on it. Hopefully it all works out
for me and I can somehow get more involved in softball here at UND and the band
thing works out too, because I really do love those things and I am passionate and
I care about them. So if there is something you are passionate or care about,
don’t forget it because of assholes, go for it anyway.
