I’m not exactly sure what it means to be a feminist, but I assume it includes considering females beyond gender stereotypes. If that’s reasonably close, then the first big feminist choice I remember making occurred in 1957 when I decked Kathy McMinn as she was racing for home.
We were playing softball during the end-of-year picnic in eighth grade at St. Mike’s grammar school, boys and girls on each pick-up team. In the fall I’d be off to the seminary looking for God. The futility of that quest, I eventually figured out, was the universe teaching me that I was searching in the wrong direction––out there, rather than within.
I mention this because my infatuation with the G-man, since birth really, led me to feel that just about every way we humans label ourselves is incredibly limiting. Man, woman, American, criminal, cannibal, saint, you name it…. There’s no label I’ve ever run across that captures the vastness of human consciousness. A small slice is the best we can do.
This doesn’t mean I’m oblivious to the roles we play. In fact, it was just that sensibility that sent Kathy McMinn sprawling and my heart somersaulting in celebration when she popped up, dusted herself off and walked away like no big deal. The faces on more than a few of my classmates, meanwhile, said, “Eewwwww!”
I was the catcher. Kathy, the runner on second. The batter hits a ground ball to the infield and gets thrown out at first. Kathy moves to third. The first baseman wings the ball to me to prevent Kathy from coming home, but the throw is wild and hits the backstop. I run to retrieve it as Kathy darts toward the plate. I get to the ball about the time Kathy is half-way to home. Time freezes just long enough for me to have an epiphany:
Do I treat her like a girl, or like a ball player?
The answer is immediate. If I treat her like a girl I won’t be honoring her as a person. So I race toward the plate and launch myself in the air in the hope that just maybe I’ll be able to tag her in time.
As often happens, enthusiasm trumps finesse. We each had some wind knocked out of us.
Today, more than a half-century later, that collision still teaches me: in every moment, we make a choice––love or fear, big or small.
In that light, maybe feminism is nothing special. Maybe it is merely the practice of thinking big, of choosing love, when it comes to chicks.
Yes! Just right to read this today!! Thanks.
Cutie pie!
Funny to see Kathy’s name pop up. She was my best friend since we were 3 and lived 4 houses apart. Kathy was a tomboy and I was afraid of my shadow. But she would play dolls with me and I would play cowboys with her. We had our tonsils out together, now that’s friendship. We would go to St, Michael’s and climb on a chair to check the movie list to be sure we could go to the movie…no “B” movies for us. She was very smart and talented. I was medium smart and couldn’t even make the chorus, which everyone made except me and those who didn’t try out. But time went by and Kathy’s parent’s both died. she worked her way thru college, married and moved to Florida. Was she a feminist, yes. I think she was. She died a few years ago and was praised as being a savior to many, devoted to her church, and a true friend. I have often wished I could be as good a friend and hope she forgave me.
This put a big smile on my face, my friend! Thank you!
That’s a good one!
I was hoping to hear from your Voice which always illuminates my own countenance in some refreshing manner. Oh my, what a collision-embracing moments of life worth celebrating in black and white letters revealing all the shades of all the colors in between, the onlookers which as a reader invited to the ball game as well as the game of life.
Thank you Dear Steve Roberts. You invite me to celebrate these moments of life with you and with other dear readers.