{"id":2870,"date":"2019-06-28T07:30:09","date_gmt":"2019-06-28T13:30:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nancyparkerbrummett.com\/?p=2870"},"modified":"2019-06-28T07:30:09","modified_gmt":"2019-06-28T13:30:09","slug":"the-balls-of-summer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nancyparkerbrummett.com\/2019\/06\/the-balls-of-summer\/","title":{"rendered":"The Balls of Summer"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/nancyparkerbrummett.com\/2019\/06\/the-balls-of-summer\/beach-balls\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-2871\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/nancyparkerbrummett.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Beach-Balls-300x180.jpg\" alt=\"Beach Balls\" width=\"300\" height=\"180\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-2871\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nancyparkerbrummett.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Beach-Balls-300x180.jpg 300w, https:\/\/nancyparkerbrummett.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Beach-Balls-600x360.jpg 600w, https:\/\/nancyparkerbrummett.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Beach-Balls.jpg 693w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>My husband and I were relaxing by a pool on a recent trip to Tucson, AZ, when a beach ball caught our eye. It wasn\u2019t the bright colors that drew our attention, however, nor even the joyful way the breeze caught the ball, causing it to bounce merrily past our chairs. We retrieved it to examine because we noticed a giant caution warning, printed on one whole panel, which was too obtrusive to ignore.<\/p>\n<p>What we read astounded us. First, in very large letters, was the warning: \u201cUse Only under Competent Supervision.\u201d Do you suppose some people would prefer incompetent supervision instead? And then, in several different languages was printed a warning, along with all the licensing information, admonishing us not to stand on the beach ball. To make their point even clearer, the manufacturers drew a sketch of a foot on a beach ball with the international symbol for \u201cdon\u2019t do this!\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/nancyparkerbrummett.com\/2019\/06\/the-balls-of-summer\/golf-balls\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-2872\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/nancyparkerbrummett.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/golf-balls-225x300.jpg\" alt=\"golf balls\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-2872\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nancyparkerbrummett.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/golf-balls-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/nancyparkerbrummett.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/golf-balls-768x1024.jpg 768w, https:\/\/nancyparkerbrummett.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/golf-balls-450x600.jpg 450w, https:\/\/nancyparkerbrummett.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/golf-balls.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px\" \/><\/a>You know what I\u2019m going to say. We both became nostalgic for all the summers of our youth when people knew just how much supervision children needed, and knew not to stand on beach balls. If you did try to stand on one, you didn\u2019t do it twice! That\u2019s how we learned in the \u201cgood ol\u2019 days!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This whole experience started me thinking about all the balls of summer. Foremost, of course, is the baseball and how stadiums across the country this summer will be full of fans wiping hot dog mustard off their faces and waiting for their favorite batters to hit one over the fence! These same people will be whistling \u201cTake Me Out to the Ballgame\u201d on the way to their cars.<\/p>\n<p>Golf balls are most prevalent in summer, too, as they land on greens, sink into holes, or find their way to nearby sand traps, bodies of water, and neighboring lawns. An older woman in Florida claims that she hit a low ball over a body of water and an alligator jumped up and swallowed it! She messaged a golf site asking how she should score that shot.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/nancyparkerbrummett.com\/2019\/06\/the-balls-of-summer\/kickballs\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-2873\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/nancyparkerbrummett.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Kickballs-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"Kickballs\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-2873\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nancyparkerbrummett.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Kickballs-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/nancyparkerbrummett.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Kickballs-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/nancyparkerbrummett.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Kickballs-600x450.jpg 600w, https:\/\/nancyparkerbrummett.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Kickballs.jpg 1280w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>I hope there still will be plenty of kick balls around this summer, too. My sisters and I played that game barefooted every day in the summer until it began to get dark and we ran home for supper. Soccer balls, bocce balls and juicy, delicious watermelon balls will no doubt appear at many picnics and family reunions, too. It\u2019s summer, folks. Use competent supervision as necessary, but have a ball!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My husband and I were relaxing by a pool on a recent trip to Tucson, AZ, when a beach ball caught our eye. It wasn\u2019t the bright colors that drew our attention, however, nor even the joyful way the breeze caught the ball, causing it to bounce merrily past our chairs. We retrieved it to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":2871,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2870","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-back-porch-break","8":"entry"},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/nancyparkerbrummett.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Beach-Balls.jpg","post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nancyparkerbrummett.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nancyparkerbrummett.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nancyparkerbrummett.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nancyparkerbrummett.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/57"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nancyparkerbrummett.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2870"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/nancyparkerbrummett.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2870\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2876,"href":"https:\/\/nancyparkerbrummett.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2870\/revisions\/2876"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nancyparkerbrummett.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nancyparkerbrummett.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nancyparkerbrummett.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nancyparkerbrummett.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}