Page 482 - WhyAsInY

Why (as in yaverbaum)
season, that few teams had come as far as they had, and that both they and he could hold their heads high. (Carter had actually tied the game in the eighth, before the Sox had gone ahead again in the ninth.) Not satisfied to leave it at that, I decided that this was also an appropriate time for another paternal lesson: that (as unlikely as I privately thought the chances of a rally), the game was not over, that his team had not given up, and that he shouldn’t either. Needless to say—but, of course, I’ll say it anyway—Carter singled with two men down, Kevin Mitchell singled, Ray Knight singled, and Mookie Wilson, down to his last strike for the zillionth time, grounded the ball through Bill Buckner’s legs to get the winning run across. A wonderful story, no? So how come Peter moved to Boston, where he lived from the summer of 1996 to the fall of 1999 (with a hiatus for the ’97–’98 ski season, during which he was a full- time instructor at Stratton Mountain) and then again from the fall of 2005 to early 2008, and in the process became a dyed-in-the-wool Sawx fan!?
And Rachel and Peter combined for some serious moments as well. As I implied earlier on, virtually since Rachel was old enough to defend herself in sibling combat, she and Peter outdid the cobra and the mon- goose. This did not make being a single father any easier. Whether, as you saw above, the issue was the menu, or who got to ride shotgun, or leaving the living room lamp on when they both went to sleep, they took great pleasure in being absolute contrarians. And if you needed any proof of the foregoing, you need only be told a bit more about the fights over the living room light. You would assume, would you not, that Rachel, the far younger sibling, would be more likely to want the light on? Wrong! True, Rachel usually wanted it on, and, if Rachel wanted it on, Peter wanted it off. But, equally true, if Rachel wanted it off, Peter wanted it on! And, as amusing as that might sound to you, just remem- ber, you did not have to mediate those fights.
Dealing with the two of them concerning lights out was difficult enough, but it is virtually impossible even to attempt to describe the mind-numbing aspects of the other opportunities for battle when it came to bedtime. I’m sure that you remember from your late childhood the strategy problem involving, for instance, the farmer, the wolf, the
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