We Aren't in Kansas Anymore and The Ode to Tetherball

I have the feeling we aren’t in Kansas anymore…mostly because we aren’t actually in Kansas.  But frankly, I don’t give a damn because I feel lucky and I feel like the force may be with me.  This is a good feeling instead of feeling bad…you know feeling like I could have been a contender.  And I really could have been…at tetherball in third grade.

 I used to play with this kid Sam and we’d always say, “Play it again Sam,” because he was so good at tetherball.  But one day, I went up to him and said, “Show me the money.”  We went at it and I beat him.  He cried and I yelled, “You can’t handle the truth!  And man up, it’s like you see dead people or something.”  He was so still and quiet for a long time that when he finally spoke, we all said, “It’s alive, it’s alive!”  He looked me straight in the eye and said, “Hello…Houston we have a problem.”  I wore a big Stetson hat on the playground so one of the kids called me Houston one day and it just stuck.  I squinted my eyes at him because I knew he was accusing me of cheating.  He wanted a rematch.  He was such a punk and I guess he was feeling lucky.  “You had me at hello,” I said.  And off we went again. 

We must have hit that tetherball for hours, but again he lost.  My strategy was simple…shaken not stirred.  Once it was over I felt like the king of the world.  Sam crumbled to the ground and looked at me with sad pitiful eyes, “why WHY!”  I looked back down at him, playing like I was busy thinking about something else and said, “You talkin to me?”  He said, “well isn’t that kind of elementary my dear Watson.”  So I said, “Here’s looking at you, kid and you want to know why?  I’ll tell you why…because nobody puts baby in a corner, that’ why.”  As I skipped off with my friends, I could hear him yell, “I’ll be back.”