Something so simple.

This is a 2" super ball (or at least that's what we always called them as kids back home.) that I bought from a vending machine in rural Kansas this past Saturday.  It brought back a whole host of emotions.  I frequently had super balls as a kid because, for something so simple and small, they provided me with so many simple ways to entertain myself.

As I was virtually an only child for much of my childhood, I had to entertain myself.  I was good at coming up with games that I could "play" by myself.  One such game was with a small super ball.  We had a blacktop driveway.  I would "whip" the ball down on the blacktop as hard as I could to get it to fly as high as possible.  The object of the game was to be able to catch the ball in my baseball glove when it came down.  Easy, right?  Too easy.  That's why I had to enact rules and points to motivate myself to make it challenging and fun.  Soooooo, while you got a point for catching the ball while on the driveway, you got more points for catching the ball off the driveway.  It went something like this.  One point for catching the ball on the driveway, two points for catching the ball out over the lawn but with your feet still on the driveway.............and three points for leaving the driveway and catching it..............BEFORE any part of your body touched the lawn. THAT is where is got fun. First, controlling where a ball goes after it bounces is no easy chore.  As such, you were motivated to develop your "whipping" skills in order to get the ball to end up as close to where you wanted it to go (If your ball went too far into the yard for you to reach it before touching the lawn............zero points.).  It was always easier to direct the ball straight up and catch it on the driveway.  But that was only one point.  The real fun was getting three points on a throw.  It required athleticism too.  And I frequently ended up with grass stains on my jeans.  I'm sure neighbors wondered what the heck I was doing out in the front driveway.  It had to look very retarded.  But it was a blast for me and I could do it by myself.

Anyway, over the years, I've seen larger super balls and wanted to get them and just have simple fun with them.  It's so easy, and fun, for me to just find a parking lot in a small industrial or office park and just throw a large super ball against the wall and have it rebound back to me and catch it in a baseball glove.  Now, though, I just want to walk streets or a long parking lot and simply bounce the ball.  Bounce and catch, bounce and catch.  I think I could do it all day, every day.  It's so simple...............yet it would provide me with so much peaceful relaxation.  It's amazing that something so simple could be so inviting to me.  I believe I could live the rest of my life with no other games or material items but a super ball.  I should have been doing things like this my entire adult life, letting myself be myself and have simple fun.  I don't want "things".  I just want peace.