Didn't Fall On Me

Excuse my absence the last few days; I was out trying to catch space junk.

Yep, when I read that the odds of a person getting hit by that falling satellite were much better than winning lotto, I decided to cast my catch-lightning-in-a-bottle-get-rich-quick-scheme dreams on the sky instead of an obviously fixed governmental agency computer and bouncing ping pong balls.

I packed some peanut butter crackers, bug repellent, and an old polaroid camera and set off for the wilderness, having paid heed to those NASA wags who said the school-bus-sized piece of space age jetsam would most likely land in an uninhabited area. That's how I ended up spending my weekend in downtown Cleveland. Being a symbolic sucker, I stopped by a sporting goods store and purchased some catcher's equipment. I duly scribbled my favorite Mitch McConnell quotes of the week all over the not-too-broken-in mitt and found a nice sized field of rye sprouting up in what used to be a nice sized Giant Tiger parking lot. Soon, reeking of Off and chomping on crackers, I pounded the mitt, looked heavenward, and started to sing the late R.E.M.'s dreamy "Fall On Me" song. Visions of a guest appearance on Coast To Coast A.M. With George Noory, probing debriefings from NASA, and a million-dollar offer to tell my story to Parade magazine made me squint a little harder into the sky for a piece of falling used space trash. Nothing.

Some hours later I took to squatting behind a makeshift home plate (really just a discarded New York Yankees dew rag) and every so often flipping my catcher's mask off in a hurry, running back to an imaginary screen, and shouting Yo La Tengo while holding the mitt basket catch style. I caught a wayward leaf once, but nothing else.

As day turned to night then to day and then to night again, and my mitt remained empty, I started to ponder this latest expedition of mine, some kind of nerdy Sandford & Son odyssey in search of pie in the sky space junk. Is this what the American Dream has come to, I wondered, sitting around waiting for a school bus to come crashing out of the sky at my feet? Still, I concluded, it'd make a helluva story. I stuck it out another 24 hours. Caught a cold, a warning from a cop, and a chipmunk named Sal. But no space junk, no glory, no quick riches.

So this afternoon I called it quits. I sauntered over to the site of old League Park, buried my catcher's gear there behind what looked like it mght have been home plate, and wended my way home, silently repeating that great Jack Nicholson line from One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest: "Well I tried, didn't I? At least I did that!" And upon returning home (which is what all journeys are about, aren't they?) I found a thing much rarer than falling space junk--a comment. From Alaska. Email me Will.