Post by James Edwards on Jul 30, 2018 21:33:21 GMT -5
Ten years isn't a long time, at least that's what every old fuck in the world tells me, but you know what, screw em', it feels like a century to me. I mean I'm only 23, I have 16, maybe 17 years of shit I can actually remember. So that's why ten is a big deal to me; that and ten years ago is the last time I can remember being genuinely happy.
Happy-go-lucky summers are an American institution. My last one came when I was 13 on a baseball field of all things. Pretty damn patriotic when you think about it. I'd walk two miles down the road from whatever shitty trailer or shotgun house my folks were rentin' at the time to a park out back of a gas station off of Winchester Road in rural Fayette County where I grew up.
There wasn't much there. Some broken swings and pink rabbits on springs you could ride. That and a baseball diamond.
The county parks department rarely mowed the grass in the outfield, so the six of us--yeah not enough for an entire team--practiced fielding for three hours a day, every day. We rotated positions and barely spoke a word to each other. I don't even think any of us ever talked at school either. There just wasn't jack shit to do where we lived but play ball. That was enough for us.
I loved the consistencies of those summers. I never had to go anywhere new. I got to play the one game that meant everything to me.
And when those summers ended, I never found anything else that matched them.
Not even now standing and looking through a tall, mesh fence at an all dirt field in Japan. Whoever gets to play on that field, kid or adult, need to let the good memories soak in while they can. Life won't get any better for them when the final out is recorded if they are anything like me; the game is and was everything. When its over, there is a crater in your heart.
Fightin' in Japan sure as hell doesn't.
Starting off, all I ever heard was how much more of a sport it is over here. How the fans respect ability and spirit. How there wasn't any of the cartoon drama that plagues the American locker room.
Fuckin', please.
My memories of my first tours of Japan, especially with Max-J: Hammerstein stalkin' and screwin' me outta an opportunity I earned and he didn't, being told I don't matter because of where I was born, and never getting within an inch of a title shot.
There was no joy in any of that. No fondness of the pure sport I crave. Just the same shit from the States that makes me consider walkin' away every time I step into a building.
But I don't give up easily.
I still go back to that field in Kentucky whenever I can. I go to remember I remember the heat and the dust. The mumbled cussin' when one of us made an error. The rare chatter when we knew we were all playin' outta our damn mind. Mostly, I see the smiles of kids on the verge of manhood at a time when everything seemed so simple.
Those are just memories, they aren't anything concrete.
I came back for the J1 with the hopes of findin' something holy; something I can take pride in; something that I can maybe find a calling in; something that helps me make sense of the useless anger the promotion and the people in it used to inspire in me.
Ten years, ten months, ten minutes or ten seconds. All of em' feel like forever when you are searchin' for something. But I owe it to myself no matter how long it takes. I deserve to be happy both in and out of the ring. The violence I create deserves a purpose greater than what I've allowed it to be.
Who knows? Maybe I'll find that long-lost boy of summer when I go to war in Yokohama.
Happy-go-lucky summers are an American institution. My last one came when I was 13 on a baseball field of all things. Pretty damn patriotic when you think about it. I'd walk two miles down the road from whatever shitty trailer or shotgun house my folks were rentin' at the time to a park out back of a gas station off of Winchester Road in rural Fayette County where I grew up.
There wasn't much there. Some broken swings and pink rabbits on springs you could ride. That and a baseball diamond.
The county parks department rarely mowed the grass in the outfield, so the six of us--yeah not enough for an entire team--practiced fielding for three hours a day, every day. We rotated positions and barely spoke a word to each other. I don't even think any of us ever talked at school either. There just wasn't jack shit to do where we lived but play ball. That was enough for us.
I loved the consistencies of those summers. I never had to go anywhere new. I got to play the one game that meant everything to me.
And when those summers ended, I never found anything else that matched them.
Not even now standing and looking through a tall, mesh fence at an all dirt field in Japan. Whoever gets to play on that field, kid or adult, need to let the good memories soak in while they can. Life won't get any better for them when the final out is recorded if they are anything like me; the game is and was everything. When its over, there is a crater in your heart.
Fightin' in Japan sure as hell doesn't.
Starting off, all I ever heard was how much more of a sport it is over here. How the fans respect ability and spirit. How there wasn't any of the cartoon drama that plagues the American locker room.
Fuckin', please.
My memories of my first tours of Japan, especially with Max-J: Hammerstein stalkin' and screwin' me outta an opportunity I earned and he didn't, being told I don't matter because of where I was born, and never getting within an inch of a title shot.
There was no joy in any of that. No fondness of the pure sport I crave. Just the same shit from the States that makes me consider walkin' away every time I step into a building.
But I don't give up easily.
I still go back to that field in Kentucky whenever I can. I go to remember I remember the heat and the dust. The mumbled cussin' when one of us made an error. The rare chatter when we knew we were all playin' outta our damn mind. Mostly, I see the smiles of kids on the verge of manhood at a time when everything seemed so simple.
Those are just memories, they aren't anything concrete.
I came back for the J1 with the hopes of findin' something holy; something I can take pride in; something that I can maybe find a calling in; something that helps me make sense of the useless anger the promotion and the people in it used to inspire in me.
Ten years, ten months, ten minutes or ten seconds. All of em' feel like forever when you are searchin' for something. But I owe it to myself no matter how long it takes. I deserve to be happy both in and out of the ring. The violence I create deserves a purpose greater than what I've allowed it to be.
Who knows? Maybe I'll find that long-lost boy of summer when I go to war in Yokohama.