I also dug a big hole in our front yard and filled it with nearly 3000 pounds of rock and 9 yards of topsoil for some much needed landscaping. It’s been a very damp and dreary spring in eastern PA and I now know what a hog feels like wallowing around in the mud. In this issue I show a photo from the project at his halfway point and for the next issue I will try to get a shot of the completed project. We took one of Henry’s baby food jars and we each placed a quarter in it from the state where we were born. I rummaged up an old 1927-S Lincoln cent for wife, who was born in California, the only state not yet issued for our family. I dug an extra foot deeper for the tree and buried the jar beneath where it now rests.

The two older boys have discovered the joy of baseball so when my back needed a rest I would head to the backyard to pitch to them. It’s amazing how some aspects never change. I recall as a youngster in Little League back in Ohio how much I liked catching pop-ups in the outfield. I’d circle around them and occasionally they’d hit my mitt. Now when I head out with the boys first thing out of their mouths is “Hit us some pop-ups.” Kids still play with “Ghostmen” and “Shadowmen” on the bases but bats are now made from aluminum not wood and baseball cards have been replaced by “Yugioh” cards (type in “Yugioh” on eBay some time—wow!).