Ron and a Spalding Ball

    

  For some time now, this gentleman has been making home improvements to state it as a matter of fact. But more than that, he offers suggestion, always with a gentle few words such as, "now I'm not saying you should, just think about it". He's usually right on target. Anything from rototilling  a garden to fixing doors, cutting down brush, picking up and moving concrete blocks and hauling it away, measuring and replacing bathroom tiles, checking roof vents, put up a side awning, storm doors, well I can't think of more off the top of my head-oh yes, he has even driven over to do my driveway, snow removal.
      Ron has also at times given a little bit of manly advice to a kid here or there in my home. Now if he could just cook!
       While I feel guilty knowing he's working so hard, I really want to lay down on the sofa, put on the TV and rest. I am trying to improve things in the home, room by room and now my biggest issues is the kitchen, but day to day I get a little more done.
       Now, the spalding ball and Ron. Today he is outside clearing away years of junk piled up and comes across a "spaldeen", as we as kids always called it but officially a spalding ball, small, pink and happy. Lost in the debris of leaves, tires, iron posts and wood, it finds Ron. Yes, I know Ron found it. Yes, as many times as kids have been playing there, in all the last fifteen years, no one found it. You see that little ball was only meant to be found by a guy from Brooklyn. I am also from Brooklyn, made sense. I washed it right away. But years of dirt grabbed onto the pink surface. Like us, we wear away, yet underneath, we're just like that spalding ball, anxious to pop up again.
     Stepping inside Ron, bounces the ball and tells me look what I found; remember stick ball? Boy did I!  I could hit two sewers. This was the happiest part of my day. There's noting at all like a childhood memory from where a person grew up to bring a sparkle of happiness along with a step of youth, pictures of the block, friends and nostalgia. The windmills of our minds as the song goes. Thank you Ron, for all of your  hard work and the memory, refreshed.