LETTERS FROM HOME: THE GANG OF THREE DROP BY FOR A `BLAST OUT'

July 28, 1994

Dear Devon, Darci and Danica,

Thank you for coming to visit Aunt DC and me. We miss you already. The Wiffle ball bat sits idly in the pail next to the garden tools, and the echoes of my favorite song of yours, that "Boom-chick-a-boom" thing, are finally fading.

As I relive driving to Benbow Lake with the windows down and the radio turned way up high for a "Blast Out," I realize I'm going to get to know the Gang of Three in little capsules of time. This one contains songs newly learned at summer camp, backyard baseball, walks to the grocery store for ice cream and little pictures of each of you: Devon narrating the dance recital video, Darci curling her upper lip like the King, Danica adopting my Giants cap.

Devon, I put your name first here because I bet middle children get tired of being sandwiched. But there are good things about the middle. That's where the ham and cheese are, where balances are struck. The middle of the country is where you live.

With a supermodel candidate for an older sister and an Elvis impersonator for a younger one, I'm afraid you're destined to go begging for attention. But I enjoy your 10-year-old acerbic sense of humor. You've an agile brain, and watching you claim the shotgun seat and orchestrate two viewings of your recital video I saw you also have what every school and company and country desperately needs -- leadership ability, I know you secretly idolize Bill Clinton.

Darci, there's a town in Southwest Missouri where you could be a star with your Dolly and Elvis and Valley Girl impressions. You cracked me up and I'm not the crack-up kind. You can be a good baseball player too if you want (you too, Devon). The secret is: Always, whether you're hitting or catching, keep your eye on the ball.

I know, that's the oldest lesson in baseball, but it's the crucial one. Most people think they're watching the ball when they're really thinking about what they're going to do if they hit it or catch it, or worried about what they're going to do if they don't. When the ball in flight is all you're thinking about until the very nanosecond contact occurs, your body automatically will react however it has been trained to. Actually, the trick is keeping your mind on the ball. Your eyes will follow through.

I also suggest you be indifferent to failure. The very best hitters fail two-thirds of the time, but with patience improve through their mistakes. This attitude applies to more than just baseball.

Saddaharu Oh was a mediocre hitter in Japan until he took samurai training and became the most productive home run hitter in the history of baseball. The training was very difficult and I don't think your Mom would want you sword-fighting in the house, but the essence of his lesson was that the greatest opponent any of us ever will face is the one in our mirror. It's our own doubts, fears, anger, envy and greed that defeat us.

Danica, I don't know how someone develops a sense of style by the age of 12, but you have. And not out of slavery to fashion by as a way to portray your personality. You are a bit of a chameleon, dressing up and down, quietly reading paperbacks in the back seat of the car one second and singing "I'm a nut" the next, sometimes shy, sometimes hammy as Ms. Elvis. But you seem to know yourself, and that's at least as tricky as hitting a baseball.

How quickly the three of you have become dear to me. I was walking back from the grocery store one day during a break from one of our Wiffle ball games and realized I was whistling. Right out loud. Don't know if you've noticed, but adults don't walk down the street whistling much unless they're in an old movie. Too much on our minds maybe, or too self-conscious. We're usually thinking about what we're going to do next, worrying we might fail, keeping our feelings so to ourselves that sometimes we don't know what they are...

But there I was, Happily tootling along. And I knew that keeping my mind on the ball and my three nieces was why.

Love,

Uncle Sam