Grandson James

We had to wait awhile for James to appear. He is the fifth grandchild of our thirteen and was proceeded by four wonderful girls. He is quite interested in sports and particularly likes the Seattle Mariners, having lived in Washington State near Bremerton while his dad was doing his submarine duty as a weapons officer. His mom took him to a Mariners' game, and he has followed them ever since. Ichiro, who plays in center field, is his favorite player. Now I am a Yankees fan, and guess what? James does not like the Yankees. I do not know why not. However. he can tell you who is first in each league and reads the sports section of the paper to keep up on his statistics. Having been transplanted to Nebraska, you would think that he would get interested in the Huskers and be another Big Red fan. But NO, not James. He will sit and watch a game and CHEER FOR THE OTHER TEAM. So, it is great fun to wear red shirts and hats. His Grammy has a special sweater with lots of Nebraska logos on it, and James goes on and on about how awful that sweater is, and how can she wear it , etc. On Saturday I remembered that I had my red Nebraska Stetson hat, purchased at an estate sale for $5 stored in a hat box in my closet and had to go get it and wear it, only to see the look on James's face. It was a "Oh No, Not The Red Hat Look." Great fun, of course, and his sisters immediately wanted to wear the hat, and, of course, I let them. The neat thing is that he does make up his own mind and is willing to stick to his point of view, even if everyone else thinks otherwise.
Last year we all went to our baseball farm team that is based in Omaha to watch a game of the Royals. They are housed in a wonderful park that seats 25,000 people and is the home of the College World Series each year . James caught one of the foul balls and was just delighted. Miss Nebraska came by during the game, wearing her tiara, and announced that she would love to give autographs. Grammy took James's newly acquired base ball and took it up to get her Miss Nebraska's autograph. James was appalled and said to me, "Why would Grammy do that?" She thought he would be embarrassed to get the autograph. I responded, "Because, she is Grammy, and she does things like that." He had no response but did no longer want that ball that had been ruined by the autograph. A rumor that I am spreading is that he has now sold the ball to his sister Sarah for a dollar, since everyone in the family knows that she wants to be a princess someday, if she secretly isn't, already.