21. Baseball Star on the rise

Leigh tried out for the All-Star Team and Lesia came out the first week of tryouts. She asked me why I was pushing Leigh into something that he could fail at and I told her I did not push him. It was all his own doing. I told her that I had told Leigh that he was the best and that is the message I gave both my boys that they could succeed but she thought that was stupid and seeing we were headed for an argument in the middle of the baseball field I walked away from her and concentrated on enjoying Leigh work hard for what he wanted.

Whilst looking at how to be more stable (my favorite bumper sticker of all time is “stable relationships are for horses”) in our home life I joined a housing co-op early in 1993. Not only were tenants purchasing their own home but also we only had to pay rent of about 25% of our gross income, which for the likes of me, being on a sole-parent pension, was quite low. Our particular house was with the Whalers Housing Co-operative Inc. in Victor. By the time we needed a house somehow our turn came up and we were given a house in Victor Harbor, though not near the town part but further along the Victor to Goolwa road. It was a relatively new small three-bedroom house with a large back yard. Of all the houses we had I really do not recall much about that house except for the backyard and a couple of events that occurred whilst there. We would have that house for all of 1994.

The news out of New York was not sounding good in my world. My brother, Robert, was becoming more ill and was admitted to hospital and it was apparent that his days were numbered. Of course all of us have our days numbered but by whom or how or anything about it is impossible to know. It is good not to know then it is all a big surprise; one second we are eating pizza and suddenly we are hovering over our body on another dimension-watching people cry because we did not leave them any pizza. Only the living really cares about the dead. The dead don’t know they are dead and do not care about the living. I know when I am dead I surely am not going to hang around the earth no matter how much fun it would be to scare people and watch the miserable humans left behind mourn for something they do not understand.

Dear Dad.
We tried to telephone you a few times - will try again before you receive this.
Have received your letters and cards. It is really good that you got to see Robert. Would it do much good for me to write him? Or send a present? I sure have let my children know that they better see me more often when I'm older than Robert has done the last several years. I have an excuse but he doesn't.
Your packages have been coming at a steady flow. Thank you for the videos. I will see them tonight as I gave them to Leigh's coach to change over to the Australian format. I gave the children their sneakers instead of waiting. Sacha really needed a pair. They fit so well and the children really like them. I am glad you got black - it was always such a problem keeping them white. The other packages I will save until Christmas. You even put in the roller blades and basketball key ring - you treat these children so well.

I didn't see Lesia last weekend - so maybe this one she will have the photos of Leigh in his baseball uniform. School is over for the year - my proposal to set up an art-zone in the park in Adelaide has not gone before council yet - now it is scheduled for December 21. I had hoped to have it set up by Christmas - now I'm hoping for February.

We are, hoping to move in January. I joined a co-op that is run by the government and we buy the house we want and pay back at a very low rate (cheaper than renting - and we can stay as long as we want in this dumb country]). It is nice, smaller than here, but it is new and they build houses smaller now days, probably the Japanese influence. But it has a large garage and a carport. and it backs onto a large reserve (park) - a little bit out of Victor Central - We'll know for sure next week.
Thank you for ringing all those baseball places for us - we have been getting a steady flow of mail - of course Leigh wants to buy everything - I am trying to build him a pitching machine - they cost thousands, but with the brochures I can take the idea to the local engineers and see if they put together something.

Not much to report. Don’t go peeking at your Christmas presents. I am happy about the wrapping paper. I spent weeks going all over looking for Australian Christmas paper - the children were going to make their own for you - but the last place I looked had it. - funny how that is, isn't it? Well keep warm - we'll be getting the phone on as soon as we move - then we can both have huge phone bills saying hello. Just saw a story on two young ladies who live in Mt. Vernon (isn't that your neck of the woods?) who just wrote a book. They are sisters. One is 102 and the other 104. They live together and do all their own housework - do interviews - write - etc. so if they can stay fit so can you - that's only fifteen years more than you - you'd see the children graduate from university - Leigh play for the New York Yankees - Sacha ? well who knows?

Christmas  1993 Victor Harbor  with Sacha , Leigh , Puppy

Christmas 1993 was our last weeks in our old Victoria Street house before we moved into the co-operative. Leigh was doing well with his baseball and was in the Pee-Wee All Stars that he had tried out for and was successful at getting a spot at. It would be the first all-star or special team that he would try out for and over the next ten years he failed only once to make any team that he tried out for. When school resumed at the end of January Leigh and I started up a baseball program at the Victor Harbor Primary School. We were in hopes to eventually have a team that would play against or with Southern Districts. At the beginning we had between 25 and 30 kids come out after school twice a week. We even got the local newspaper to do a story to get the interest of the locals. It was the first time in what would be a decade of media attention in regards to Leigh’s interest in baseball.

1994

Baseball star is lonely at the top From the Victor Harbor Times newspaper www.victorharbortimes.com.au/

“A young  Victor Harbor baseballer who has made the  Southern Districts All Star team wants other  budding young players to join him.
             Ten-year old  Leigh Neuage has been playing for five years but has to go  to Noarlunga four times a week two for practice and two for  games to practice his favorite sport.

This season  his effort paid off.

Coach of the  Christies Beach team, Richard Teague suggested he try out for  the All Star team, the Southern District Hawks and was chosen on his  batting and pitching abilities. 

As far as we  know, Leigh is the first from Victor  Harbor to play on an All Star  baseball team, his father, Terrell said this week.
             Leigh, whose hobbies include collecting baseball cards, says the New York Yankees are his favourite team and favourite  player is Don Mattingly, their first baseman.

Highlights  of his short baseball career have included meeting New York Yankee pitcher, Mark  Hutton, who is from Adelaide, and visiting the  Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. Although Leigh has a busy baseball life,  it is also a lonely one with no other budding young baseballers in the local  area. 

Two nights a  week, Monday and Thursday he practices on the Victor Harbor Oval with his father the only other local  person he has to play with.

Both he and  his father would love to hear from other youngsters interested in establishing  baseball in the Victor Harbor area.”

baseball star lonely at the top

Sacha was not doing very well with school at Victor Harbor Primary and through an incredible desperation of parenting; Lesia and I managed to communicate enough with one another that we would find an alternative to public schooling. She suggested Saint Ignatius College in Adelaide. It was obvious that Sacha was smart but he had become a tad bit wild and I had many arguments with those in power in school with me trying to point out to them that it was not Sacha but the school's setup that was at fault120F

5 St. Kilda Street
Victor Harbor  South Australia  5211
phone  085  527 119
February 1994
Dear Carol Ann,
Since I miss most of your birthdays - I thought I would surprise you and remember this one.  Gee, only 47.  And Desiree, wouldn't she be about 26?  How does this happen?  The last time I saw her she was six or seven years old.
I had hoped to see you a couple of years ago - when we were there.  We stayed in Indiana for a week - visited Randy in Oregon.  Saw all my ageing friends.  My father came to visit us awhile back - his birthday is coming up too - 89 – amazing stuff. 
We are the same - in a bit of a time warp here. My youngest, Leigh is 10 - and a baseball All-Star - has featured in the paper and all.  He is 5 foot-three, and my other son, Sacha, at 13, is 5 foot-eleven.  Sacha attends a private Catholic school in the city - wears a coat and tie - though he hates the uniform - but he needed the discipline and structure of a private school - too much like me.  I still do my writing - sell my picture-poems in Adelaide.
Just wanted to look into your life for a moment.  I could send some newspaper clippings of us if you are interested.
Was just sitting here writing away and though you cross my mind a lot - today I was just struck with the notion of making contact.
Write me a long letter.  How you are - what you are doing?  About Desiree - America - everything.  I am hoping we can move back in a couple of years. 
Took the children to Europe a few years ago.  That was fun.  We went to Paris, Germany, London, Switzerland.  We live a pretty mundane life - just raising the kids and writing and working and I've gone back to university where I'm finishing a degree in journalism and literature - then I'll probably go for a masters so I can teach in the States.
Well, bye –

I did not get a response from Carol Ann. My letter was never returned so I assume she received it. I never tried writing again though when the World Wide Web began I tried many times between 1994 and 2004 trying to see if I could locate her or Desiree but I have now given up on that too. Carol Ann lives best in my memory and I would only be disappointed to see her again. Years after writing this I did have interaction with Carol Ann’s daughter, Desiree, who I last saw about 1973 - 36 years earlier.

During June Sacha played basketball every Wednesday in Adelaide. He was developing as a very good player and I had hoped he would be able to use basketball as a career move. A scholarship to a university was my end resultant thought but we can only influence people when they wish to be influenced by us. We can only ever have hopes and wishes for ourselves because to have them for anyone else is to set up ourselves for disappointment without end.

We live in such vacuums. Without looking at ourselves within relationship to someone or something else we put ourselves into a rather deep orbit far into space that no one can witness.  Actually we are always in orbit at any time and the idea is to bring someone else if not many others into our orbit as we orbit around that which we do not know.

Celebrities thrive on others being in orbit around them. What the celebrity does not see though is that they are being used; all those in orbit are just sucklings – little piglets feeding off the tits of stardom and hope. The celebrity (pope, sports player, actress, politician, entertainer, teacher…) can only be fed off of while he or she has celebrity-milk leaking then the celebrity dries up and dies at which time the horny hungry horde goes off in search of another celebrity to suckle.

And of course, the reality of the situation is that we all live in disappointment because no one will be or do exactly what we want. We can find a poster-celebrity that appears to be acting out what we want but of course when we think realistically for just a moment we find we were fucked up in our thinking all along.

As I tried to make it obvious to no one who would listen to me it was clear to me that Sacha was not getting the stimuli that he needed and that because of the boring curriculum on offer at Victor High he was acting out. However, I was not convincing anyone and Sacha was enrolled to go Saint Ignatius. Lesia and I even went together to some open house thing and acted civil toward one another. The way it was going to be was that Sacha would live with Lesia during the week and come home to Victor for the weekends. Leigh and I were together all the time and occasionally he would go to North Adelaide and stay with Lesia. I did not think it was good to have the two children never staying together but there was no other way to do it. Sacha started with great excitement about his new school and the first couple of weeks were good for him. It took a good three weeks for the whole experiment of private school and living with the mother to come terribly unravelled.

Leigh and I settled into our new home and life seemed momentarily good. Is it me or is it a joke of some creative force? It all looks so right then suddenly it all becomes so bad – it has been a constant recurring theme in my life and I have never quite figured out why. Of course, knowing that no one’s life really means anything and even the solar system will someday turn to shit makes it all sensible on some level.

22. Artist in the Park Rymill Park Adelaide Australia

Terrell Neuage, (dual citizen USA/Australia) is a South Australian/New York poet, writer, and digital artist known for his evocative poetry and extensive research on conversational analysis in on-line communciations (including communication in the AI era; from sharing information to making sense of it). His best-selling autobiographies;Leaving America (Before the After) & Leaving Australia (after) – exploring life as a hippie, brother in a California Cult (Holy Order of MANS) as Brother Terrell Adsit, Astrolger (40-years) to non-believer, and adventures in Australia, single parent, tofu manufacturer/street artist, China, the USA & fifty+ other ountries. From high school drop out, Shenendehowa Central School, Clifton Park, New York at age 16, back to school at age 44 (BA & Masters from Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia) to PhD from the University of South Australia at age 58 to knocking on your door at age 77.