Just A Gal From Glidden: The summer I missed

By Kate Winquist

Earlier this week, I received a press release from the Saskatchewan Baseball Hall of Fame announcing that Earl Berard had been named its new president.

Berard, of course, is a Kindersley baseball legend. He was one of the driving forces behind bringing the U18 World Youth Baseball Championships to Kindersley in 1984, an event that put our little prairie town on the international baseball map.

His appointment immediately took me back to the summer of 1984.

I was 15 years old and the only kid left at home with Mom and Dad. While most teenagers would have jumped at the chance to spend their summer watching future Major League Baseball stars like Canada's Larry Walker, Albert Belle from the United States and Juan Guzman from the Dominican Republic, I was packed off to Lloydminster to babysit for my sister, Valarie.

At the time, I honestly wasn't too disappointed.

After all, I was making a whopping $20 a day. In 1984, that felt like serious money.

Besides, I didn't have my driver's licence yet. Babysitting sounded a whole lot better than pulling weeds, picking peas, snapping beans, digging potatoes, mowing the yard or painting grain bins. Those were the glamorous summer jobs usually assigned to me on the farm.

My sister worked as a lab technologist at Lloydminster Hospital, and my brother-in-law, Doug, worked at the local lumberyard. My nephew Derek wasn't quite four years old, and my niece Amanda was about a year and a half.

Strangely enough, I don't remember much about the babysitting itself. Funny how memory works. The things that seemed important at the time disappear, while the little details stick around forever.

I remember eating an awful lot of hamburgers and hot dogs off the barbecue.

I remember being under strict instructions to keep the house spotless because it was for sale and the realtor could call at any moment wanting to show it. More than once, I'd race around picking up toys and wiping fingerprints before strangers walked through. They eventually accepted an offer, and that chapter of their lives came to an end.

Mostly, though, I remember saving every dollar I earned.

I had my sights set on upgrading my portable cassette player. It wasn't a real Sony Walkman. Those were far too expensive. Mine was one of the knockoff versions, but to me it was still freedom. A fresh pair of batteries, a handful of cassettes and I could disappear into my own world for hours.

And what a soundtrack that summer had.

Prince dominated everything with Purple Rain. Tina Turner was making one of the greatest comebacks in music history with What's Love Got to Do with It. Bruce Springsteen released Born in the U.S.A. Cyndi Lauper, Lionel Richie, Madonna and Van Halen seemed to be on every radio station.

It was one of those summers when music wasn't just background noise. It became part of your memories.

Meanwhile, back in Kindersley, history was unfolding without me.

The World Youth Baseball Championships brought players from around the globe to our little community. Nobody could have known then that kids running onto the diamond would one day become household names in Major League Baseball. Larry Walker would eventually become the first Canadian elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. Albert Belle would become one of baseball's most feared hitters. Juan Guzman would pitch Toronto to some unforgettable moments.

And I missed every inning.

At 15, I didn't think much about it. There would always be another baseball tournament.

Looking back now, I realize there wasn't.

Some events become part of a community's story. If you were there, you remember exactly where you sat, who you watched the games with and the excitement of seeing athletes before the rest of the world knew their names.

I wasn't there.

Instead, I was in Lloydminster making twenty bucks a day, flipping burgers, chasing toddlers and dreaming about cassette players.

Funny thing is, I don't regret it.

Life has a funny way of giving you exactly the memories you're supposed to have, even if they aren't the ones you would have chosen years later.

Still, if someone happened to invent a time machine tomorrow, there are a few places I'd like to visit.

Berard Field in Kindersley during the summer of 1984 would be pretty close to the top of the list.