An alien might conclude Eastern Sussex is fitness hub of universe

Last Saturday morning I was the double intersection photographer-at-large in the town of Milton, staying a step ahead of the Little League parade that ran from Milton Elementary off Federal Street to the Little League field off Route 16 behind the VFW where 50 years earlier a group of young men hatched out their dream of starting a Little League within walking distance of the stools on which they were sitting. No one mentioned beers and pickled eggs. They didn’t have to; this is small-town America - it doesn’t get any better or more imbued with tradition than Milton. Every player and coach in the parade had a pick-up bed or low-boy flatbed trailer to ride upon. Once at the park it was the old “Can you hear me now” with a temperamental microphone and lots of introductions punctuated by “He could not be here” or “He is no longer with us.” A young girl sang the national anthem and there was a band of brothers in baseball uniforms who joined together and played music, including “When the Saint Go Marching In.” There was a scene where former league officials threw out simultaneous first pitches to grandsons and great-grandsons who turned and chased them, including Eastern Shore Baseball Hall of Famer Jesse Millman who joked, ”That was a strike; did you see that pitch?” The founders of Milton Little League were Jim Reed, Phil Hauck, Bill Spencer, Fred Sposato, Sinclair Campbell and Dr. Thomas Tobin.

ATHLETES ARE EVERYWHERE - Last weekend there were Little League parades in three towns followed by a slate of baseball and softball games, field hockey games all over Hudson Fields, Atlantic Lacrosse teams on the road in Salisbury, Henlopen Soccer behind HOB in Milton, all-day lacrosse at Legends Stadium, a half marathon on Sunday centered at Legends Stadium, special needs little people learning how to run in their lanes on Cape’s track and high school teams all over the place including the Philadelphia Penn Relays. An alien being hovering about Five Points might conclude that eastern Sussex County is the fitness hub of the universe. This is where I go to Walmart for the counterweight of this story. Just as many people don’t care about fitness and athletic development as do care, and we always use Walmart as the natural habitat for the casually unfit and don’t-care segment of society, but we all go there and contribute to skewing the sampling.

FLO TRACK - There was live video streaming of the Penn Relays, an event that smells much better at home and hopefully you don’t have a trough in your bathroom like they still do at Franklin Field, which is totally disgusting, but at least puffy clouds of marijuana smoke circle the stadium all day and by 6 p.m. everyone speaks with a Jamaican accent, which would be a good thing, no question about it. The live video also featured live unedited chatting, tweeting or whatever the total destruction of the English language is called these days. It doesn’t take a genius - it takes me - to assess the overwhelming evidence that the hand-held device - is that what it’s called? - is tearing down language structure to the negative side of simple and as language goes away so does the actual thought process itself, hence the joke “He’s so dumb he thinks in pictures.”

SNIPPETS - Last Monday I got a gramps cramp in the hamstring in the middle of the night and began hopping on one leg in the dark causing my wife Susan to awake abruptly and ask “What are you doing?” She is always understated like that, like the time I trashed my ankle and slithered to the back door or fell off a ladder and landed feet first on the sidewalk still holding a bucket of paint. A note to all “taxpayers” in the Cape school district: you have no right to use the track whenever you wish for workouts just as you have no right to use the gym. Historically the Cape track has been left open for community use, but if a sanctioned activity comes on you have to get off or at least not threaten to run through special needs children. Basically that’s called good citizenship. Legends Stadium goes on lockdown and fitness people will be running intervals around bus circles.