> SOUTHERN INDIANA — I am going to be perfectly honest with you today. I am going to ramble. Today will deal with a few thoughts on public nudity, baseball perfect games and perspective.

One afternoon many years ago I left my office in Louisville dressed in a business suit after a long day. I remember thinking I might need to go to the restroom, but was in a hurry. I thought I just had a 20 minute drive home. I can wait. I will get back to that story later.

A few days ago a professional baseball pitcher threw a perfect game. It was the 23rd perfect game thrown in the history of the game. Most sports fans were praising the pitcher’s accomplishment. My wife simply asked me, “Why is he getting all the credit? Didn’t the other guys have anything to do with that?”

Life is very simply about perspective. Every individual has a unique path through life. Like snowflakes and fingerprints — no two are alike.

It has taken me a lifetime to really know myself. I will upon occasion be proud of me and other times disappoint me. I rarely surprise myself anymore. It’s hard for me to catch me totally off guard. I know my strengths and weaknesses better than anyone else will ever know them even when I am in self-denial or practicing self-aggrandizement.

I know people who complain about everything and are never happy. They live in a nice house, drive a nice car, have a nice family, and work in what most would consider a good job. Yet, somehow I rarely see them enjoying the gift that is life. They are glass half-full types. They never see how much more they have than others, but always see others who have more. It’s impossible to be happy unless you know what happiness is. After my 56 years I have finally understood that some people never understand what happiness is.

Whenever I write what I consider to be a brilliant column that fully explains why I am correct it is almost inevitable that somebody will let me know how wrong I am. In other words, we will have a different perspective.

Young people will never have the same perspective as older folks. It’s impossible. Every day you live and experience life, you will have a different overall perspective on things.

It’s people without perspective that are the most frustrating. Did you ever have a person that isn’t married and has no kids tell you what you are doing wrong as a parent? Those people have absolutely no perspective that allows them to have expertise on the subject. Did you ever want to slap one who started a sentence with, “I know what I would do if that were my child?”

I have had an opportunity over the last nine months to work with people mostly experiencing the worst time in their life. Some are bad people. Others have just done bad things. Many have simply made horrible choices. Each time I interact I am allowed perspectives of lives vastly different from my own. I tend to be the kind to experience and learn as much about the total experience of life as is possible.

I am aware I will never experience or learn, but a fraction of that totality, but think the amount I allow myself to learn will dwarf that of some.

This rambling brings me back to the perfect game and Kim’s question. I met Kim when I was helping to coach a softball team of which she was a member. She was the consummate team player who never sought any personal glory. The only emotion she ever displayed on a softball field was glee when she won. She could walk off the field after a defeat and be the same person as when she walked out onto the field.

I also considered myself a consummate team player; but one who loved to get the big hit, make the memorable catch, or score the winning run. I liked the adulation and attention. After a tough loss it was probably best to let me privately see the aftermath. It would often take me hours to lose the adrenaline and competitive juices.

I only had a proper perspective about sports after I hung up the cleats. I know many people who stopped playing a long time ago but still haven’t hung up their cleats.

I can never make her understand how I view a pitcher throwing a perfect game any more than she could ever convince me that it was just a game when I was competing. I can’t argue with her logic that it would have been impossible without the rest of the team. Even if the pitcher had struck out 27 batters, a catcher would have been a necessity.

In life, much as in sports, she and I can sometimes have very different perspectives.

As for my ride home from work that afternoon, I was caught in a four-hour plus traffic nightmare as someone had been killed on the Kennedy Bridge and the accident could not be cleared until a coroner arrived upon the scene. After a couple of hours I was experiencing severe discomfort and in broad daylight had no choice but to urinate on a pillar beneath the second street bridge. Had I been caught I would probably had been charged with public nudity. So when I read when somebody charged with that offense on a police book-in log in the newspaper, I might have a different perspective than you.



Lindon Dodd is a freelance writer who can be reached at lindon.dodd@hotmail.com