Oh, speaking of boring summer activities, I don't think ANY summer was as boring, as the summer mum enrolled both me and my sister in the village's Girl's Softball League. (Girl's weren't allowed to play baseball, when I was growing up. Baseball was for boys, and softball was for girls.)
Why the hell do they call it "softball," anyway? I for one can tell you, getting hit by a "softball," is like getting hit with a blinking rock, okay? It stinking HURTS.
LEFT-TO-RIGHT:
a SOFTBALL, some HAIL, a BASEBALL. For some reason, weather forecasters often use baseballs and softballs and American dimes (10 cent coins) to describe the size of hail.
Anyway, spent the ENTIRE summer (or at least it felt like it) Standing in the hot sun in left field, waiting for a ball that seldom came my way (and when it did, I never caught it), or hitting foul balls and getting strike outs. In an entire stinking summer, I got to run the bases a total of maybe--once. Mostly, when not standing around getting sunburned, I was sitting on my arse in the dugout wishing I was somewhere else.
We somehow won the pennant though--or rather the trophy. Don't ask me how, 'cos I haven't a clue. We got a free day out at Glass lake--that was a local resort on a lake, with a resturant, and a hothouse swimming pool, and a beach. We got the usual rubber chicken dinner and little trophy's...I had mine for over fifteen years, 'till it finally fell apart. Figured I'd earned the dang thing-- for nearly dying of boredom, in the summer of '72.
THE VILLAGE BASEBALL/SOFTBALL DIAMOND, ALONGSIDE THE D&H RAIL TRACKS:
HEY--THIS WAS MY POSITION, IN THE SUMMER OF '72, GOOD OLD LEFT FIELD...ONLY I NEVER THREW LIKE THAT.
AS AN ASIDE--The street which I grew up on, is on the opposite side of the steep hill, seen in the background. In summertime, we used to slide down this hill on flat pieces of cardboard that we nabbed from the rear of the old Stylecraft appliance store. It was great fun...well, except for when your bum slid off the cardboard, and accidentally came in contact with some stinging nettles--ow. 
