Fall Equinox's Hope

As published in The County Times (countytimes.somd.com)

By Ronald N. Guy Jr.

The photo dates to early March of this year.  At first glance it is just a small, nondescript reservoir of dirt.  The text caption – “First sign of spring” – indicated more.  A curious, closer inspection revealed a hint of life: a fragile little green sprout protruding ever so slightly from the soil.

That humble sprout indicated that winter’s bitter hold was loosening and that spring, nature’s time of renewed hope and reawakening, was near.  Soon barren trees would be adorned with leaves, lawns would be alive, flowers would bloom and birds and insects would broadcast a symphony of daily sounds.  For those familiar with this magical transformation, closed eyes can easily imagine the colors, smells and sounds of spring replacing the gray, scentless and quiet winter; the mental exercise causes human spirits to blossom right along with the natural world’s rebirth.

The tiny sprout that peeked above the dirt’s surface this March is now a vibrant tomato plant.  It is nearly six feet tall and has produced about a dozen red fruits that buoyed epic sandwiches, formed the foundation for succulent caprese and were the backbone for killer bowls of salsa, all of which have accompanied summer sports viewing.

Ah yes, sports – why you all started reading and why some still are!  Did you see the Chicago White Sox recently lost 21 straight games?  That, my friends, is quite the feat.  Dubious.  Regrettable.  But memorable.  So memorable that it brought the 1988 Orioles, those lovable losers, to mind.  If you recall, the ’88 Birds started the season with 21 straight losses.  Needless to say, the 0-21 start extinguished all baseball hope that spring!  Twenty-one-straight in the tank is the baseball equivalent of dousing a flower garden with Round-Up.

Which gets the wayward and somewhat disjointed mind to thinking: as a catalyst of hope, is spring overrated?  In a general sense and in consideration of the broad spectrum of life, the answer is no more definitive than a solid “maybe”.  It’s a push, one supposes - a decision best left to the individual and personal persuasions.  But if we’re strictly talking sports, and we are, the answer is an inarguable “yes”. 

Sports’ best soul food is served in late summer and early fall – a time when we get our first look at new coaches, free agent signees and slick new draftees in the NFL, NBA and NHL.  The possibilities are boundless.  Fans from cities all over this beautiful land are gleefully fitted for rose-colored glasses through which they can see titles, parades, late nights and lost voices, and fantastic morning hangovers.  Even in MLB, a sport that starts in late February, September is about pennant runs for contenders and late-season call-ups of hot prospects for squads dreaming of next year – either way, it’s a hope buffet.  This grand arc of a sports fan’s optimism starts to swell in mid-August and trails deep into October.  But for precise hope prognosticating, a singular moment in time must be identified; to mark the spot in this case, we’ll put an X on the fall equinox, or the autumnal equinox if sounding fancy is your style.  That’s about when darn near anything in sports seems possible – World Series titles, Lombardi trophies, hoisting the Stanley Cup, and magical seasons, either immediate or in the not-so-distant future.

That is arbitrary, of course, and specific to sports.  Truth is, in a general human sense, it is immaterial whether you draw hope from the spring, the sports world’s late summer surge of possibilities, or for some other reason and from some other location on the calendar altogether.  What matters is that hope knocks on your door, greets you with a smile and finds its way consistently into your heart.  That’s how one continues to abide in this crazy world, no matter if your baseball team sinks out of the gate in the spring, your football team craters by Halloween, or your basketball and hockey teams are toast by the time Santa takes flight.  Keep hope alive, my friends; even in the worst of times, a little seedling of hope is waiting to peek above the surface.