Swing Hard, Kid

That’s what Ted Williams did on 3-and-2 counts … that’s what Einstein did with the vagaries of light. Shouldn’t we?

“Never sleep with a woman whose troubles are worse than your own,” the great Nelson Algren once wrote.

Whoa, Nellie! Guess what: Almost all the women I’ve ever slept with had troubles worse than my own. Or why would they?

Listen, I was never much for taking my own advice. I just spew these half-baked wisdoms, like a loose garden hose that boogie-woogies around the driveway.

That’s my life as well: a misbehaving garden hose. “Dr. Freud, clean up on Aisle 6. Dr. Freud…”

Hope you laughed. I get very uncomfortable with silence. And garden hose metaphors.

Honestly, I don’t know day from night, hot from cold, a raven from a goose.

I don’t understand Plato’s notion of an ideal plane, or why dogs drag their butts. I still buy artisanal honey in jars, not squirt bottles. So stupid.

I still read at a first-grade level, sounding out syllables as I go. I also struggle with proper nouns and coordinate conjunctions.

Yet, I find that reading slowly is like savoring a lovely slab of lamb. The better the book, the slower I swallow it. Sometimes I just stop, trance like, and let my eyeballs soak in the words. As if admiring Grace Kelly, and wondering: “How did God do that?”

Similarly, Bach embraced beautiful things. He doubled-down on concertos. As did Ted Williams with 3-and-2 counts … as did Einstein with the vagaries of light. They doubled-down.

Me, I do that with great books and zoftig cheeseburgers you can’t quite pick up. Both are newborns. You never know quite where to grab them…under the armpits, behind the head?

FYI, Miss Suzie is an omnivorous reader. She devours three books in the time it takes me to write this sentence.

There is hardly a topic I top her at. Perhaps cribbage. Perhaps the off-sides rule in hockey. Perhaps plumbing, though she recently bought the world’s best book on home renovation and will soon lap me in that realm as well.

For the record, I adore smart women. I detest smart dudes. Dr. Freud? Dr. Freud?

I interviewed a very renowned doctor recently, famed for his treatment of troubled relationships.

“Aren’t all relationships a little troubled?” I wanted to know, just as all families are slightly dysfunctional.

There are many things — families, relationship, ball clubs — that are broken yet still worth our time. The Chicago Cubs for instance.

The Cubs are broken, yet the fans still attend, the beer vendors doing their very best to ensure the fans are drunkenly stupid, so as not to realize the fiasco unfolding before their eyes.

A lot of that goes on with government too. Give the peasants just enough to keep them content.

It works until it doesn’t.

That was always my philosophy on parenting as well. Give them just enough. Too much spoils them. Too much turns them into a Kennedy.

A core belief: Not quite enough is better than way too much.

Lord, we’re weird creatures, aren’t we? We fuss over our appearances more than any animal I know, even influencers. We crave emotional sustenance, feel unworthy of our hard-earned success.

What’s to become of a species like this? Are we our own worst fate?

Oh well. As I always say — philosophically, as sort of a joke — “we live in interesting times.”

So did the Druids. So did witches. Now us. Congratulations. Like the Hindenburg, we’ve become historic.

Don’t you wish current events were a little less frantic though? Don’t you wish bad news took the occasional day off?

Look, we’re still in the game. Like the Cubs.

Bad example. We’re still in the game. Like the Dodgers — rich, magniloquent, feisty, famed.

FYI, Dodger Stadium used to be my man cave. Like me, that old place has mustard in its pores.

Now I can’t even afford to park there.

Yet, as with other royal families, I can still appreciate their shine, their glimmer, their outsized self-regard.

See, mankind is in the eighth inning. They’ve shut down the beer stands. The rookie left-fielder, just up from Oklahoma City, is at the plate, the one who swings like a rusty gate.

Only the whole world is watching.

Swing hard, kid. In case you hit it.

Coming Saturday: How to offset a bout of melancholy: beer, yard work, TJ’s tote bags…

Please stay tuned for the next Happy Hour Hike, to be held at Dodger Stadium or Descanso Gardens in late April or early May.