Softballin’

VIEWPOINT

By RALPH HARDIN

Evening Times Editor

By the time you read this, I will hopefully be getting ready to head to Gulf Shores, Alabama for a few days. I would call it a vacation, but I’ll actually still be doing all the stuff I need to do for work. I’ll just be working a little more remotely than usual.

No, this is all about my daughter and her softball team. They are playing in the Gulf Shores Classic this week and a bunch of the parents are going down to support them (and if I can enjoy watching her play a few more games in her senior year and still get my work done, why not, right?).

Normally, when you think of a place like Gulf Shores, you think about the beach — you know, sun, surf, and sand. But the Weather app on my phone says cloudy and mid-60s all week, so it might just be a seafood and Air BnB kind of a deal, which is also fine with me. The ocean and I aren’t really friends.

See VIEWPOINT, page A6 VIEWPOINT

From page A4

Getting ready for this trip, though, did remind me of a softball trip we went on for my sister’s team back in the day. This would have been around 1988 or so. My dad was the coach and there were teenage girls, so naturally 15year-old me wanted to tag along. I want to say it was Jackson, Mississippi, but don’t quote me on that. And we had a hotel for the team and family. The hotel had a pool, and one afternoon after they were done playing for the day, we all went swimming. Not all that big a deal — except. Guess whose tour bus pulled up in the parking lot? None other than country music legends Alabama!

Now, I like Alabama just fine but I was more of a rocker back then… but boy were all of those softball girls’ moms excited! Especially when the band also decided to jump in the pool to cool off a short while later.

And as a bonus, no one can tell me I haven’t seen Randy Owen in a pair of Confederate flag speedos… so there’s that.