George and Ralph Arrive
Bad luck. Mistakes. My best friend Billie and I had many meetings with those two things. In fact, we had too many meetings. It seemed as if we knew those two forces as more than acquaintances. We named them: George and Ralph.
The day could start out perfect and everything could be fine. Then George, bad luck, would poke his head out and mess everything up. Following George around, would always be Ralph, mistakes, who would trip up Billie and I, ruining things even more than before.
It was baseball season when Billie and I looked at George and Ralph in a new light. We were competing against the Tigers, the best team in the district. While our team was closer to last; in fact, dead last. Through the season George and Ralph had hung around our team causing trouble in their sneaky way. Yet it looked as if we ditched them during our practices, because we were looking and doing well.
During the game, with Billie and I in out field, our team was holding our own against the Tigers. No runs had been made, but we were fighting with all we had, and held on. As the innings passed it became harder to tell which inning we were in until the Tiger’s scored a run at the ending of the eighth.
In the ninth, Billie hit a ball deep into center field. Running around the bases, it looked as if Billie was going to beat the ball. Except, George had finally emerged fully into the game. The short stop of the Tigers had over thrown the ball too far to the left. Billie dived and made it under the catcher’s guard, making a homerun. The ninth inning was about to end, for we only needed one more out to tie the game. However, the hitter nailed a ball screaming left, straight to me. Running deep to catch it and catching it low on its bounce, I threw straight at Bobbie, our shortstop. The runner was just rounding third, heading home. Bobbie threw home, as the ball passed the runner, Ralph finally emerged.
The runner tripped, flying forward toward home, but the runner made the best of it. Rolling out of the way of the catcher’s glove the runner touched home base. Well, in any event the Tigers’ won. Billie and I realized something important. George and Ralph are everywhere and after everyone. It is how you act after they arrive that determines how long they stay.