=== Notes from Underground ===
A lot of people hate to ride the New York City subways, but I love them because I like to get places fast. A musician balancing a cello case, two Buddhist monks in saffron robes, and a group of stockbrokers in crisp, charcoal gray suits get on at Wall Street. A passenger placidly sews while the subway train flings and jolts. A teenager holding a shoebox containing a kitten as tiny as a gingersnap smiles even if a line of girls in frilly white communion dresses file by. About three and a half million people a day ride the subways I think maybe I might possibly have met them all. Sometimes a Salvation Army volunteer boards the subway train with sandwiches and juice to give to the needy. 'Put your pride to the side!' the volunteer shouts, and I’ve seen many people put out their hands. The speaker also raises money. It's impossible to predict which people will dig into their pockets or if they were to open their purses, and I’ve stopped trying to guess. Last week some fellow passengers and I watched an elderly man with a portable chessboard playing chess against himself. Just yesterday I sat across the aisle with a woman who was composing music in pink-tinted glasses in a notebook. She tapped her foot as she reviewed what she’d written and then stopped tapping and jotted more notes as the train hurtled along. Today is my mother’s birthday. I decided to surprise her with lilac blooms from my backyard, so this morning, carrying a shopping bag full of the flowers, I boarded a crowded 'E' train and rode it to the very last stop in the Bronx. Strangers smiled and took pains not to crush the flowers, even when the train jerked to a halt. I got off at an elevated station and, lifting the splendid bouquet, rushed down to my mother, feeling delighted that I’d brought the blooms all the way from Brooklyn on the subway train.
=== Baseballs and Butterflies ===
Our son has started playing organized T-ball, a beginner’s version of baseball. 'Organized' is what parents call it, anyway. Joe is seven, living in those two or three years when they can manage to throw a baseball a few feet but when what they’re really interested in are bugs, butterflies, dirt (if they’re in the infield), grass (if they’re in the outfield). Children of that age still think nothing of doing little dances in the outfield, often with their backs to home plate and, consequently, the batter. It’s not as if the outfielders’ positions matter much, though—the ball never gets hit hard enough to reach there. Sincethere’s not much chance that a seven-year-old just learning the game can hit a pitched baseball, the umpire puts the ball on top of a stationary tee, a piece of flexible tubing adjusted to each batter’s height. If batters repeatedly fail to hit the ball—and lots of them do—the umpire is patient, giving them four or five chances instead of the usual three. When a batter finally makes contact, the ball dribbles into the infield, where the nearest player usually ends up throwing the ball at the first baseman’s feet or, if the fielder is precocious, over the first baseman’s head. In a T-ball league, one needs to do something to keep the score from reaching triple digits in the early going. There’s a rule, therefore, that says the runner must stop when any fielder from the other team picks up the ball and holds it aloft. The rule might seem a good one, but the children can’t remember to hold up the ball. Once they’ve picked it up, they look at it quizzically for a while and then, look up to see what all the ruckus is about. What it’sabout a bleacher section full of parents, each adult frantically holding up a stiff arm. The child with the ball wonders at the grown-up’s odd, noisy behavior. Meanwhile, the runners continue to score. They score, that is, if they were not to be distracted by the grown-ups—or the butterflies.