The Countdown to In Patient Time (and Countdown to Opening Day)

I have a very fun, energetic young man who comes into my classroom every day announcing how many days we have until opening day of the baseball season. As a die-hard Brewers fan, you can't help but smile at this guy's gusto to get the season underway. He and I both began our countdown soon after the Packers lost their NFC Championship game to the Giants (gosh, does that ever seem like ages ago).

One of the benefits of being a male teacher to 5th graders is that I am often looked to as the sports guru. While I have never run a sports talk show, I often get asked my opinions on all sorts of local sports related questions... "Who will win the NCAA men's tourney?" "Why are the Bucks not having a good season?" "Why did the Packers lose their championship playoff game?" "Who should be the Brewers top five starters?" "What spot in the batting order should we bat Prince Fielder?" The list goes on and on. Each day, before school, these and other topics are frequently discussed with the same amount of passion as one would get from call-in listeners to local radio shows.

With that in mind, I have started thinking about the "Milwaukee Brewers All-Star Countdown" to Jeni going in-patient (and the season starting). While not as in-depth as other entries on this blog, I hope that these posts provide my readers with the same sort of chuckles that my students give me with our before school sports talk sessions.

Today we are 17 days out, hence, I declare it "Jim Ganter Day." (Ganter, the Brewers second baseman throughout most of the '80's and early '90's was a popular player here in town and wore the #17). Ironically, as a kindergarten and first grade student growing up in Hales Corners, WI, I often would visit the Ganters home and play with their oldest daughter, Jamie who was my age. I remember them having a beautiful black lab named Sassy, and wearing a #17 Ganter shirt to the ball game one time in honor of my friend's dad when I was a little kindergartener. Ganter is a fitting player to start this "All Star Countdown!"

While Jeni and I are both rejoicing in the thought that she will be going into in-patient care soon, this is a bittersweet time for us both. The thought of Jeni being away in the hospital for possibly two months is hard to comprehend (both for her and for I for similar and different reasons). We are hoping an praying that the phrase "all's well that ends well" will take on a whole new meaning in the weeks and months ahead. We are approaching the start of level two of this experience, and we pray that all will continue to go well.

The Gantner autographed card photo is taken from the Midwest League Autographs webpage. Looking at those old cards sure do bring back memories.