In the fall, when the winds would howl and whip a rainstorm across Orlando, Fla., the retention pond a couple of houses down from the Harvey family home would overflow with the anger of hurricane season. Grass flooded to mush. Dirt flooded to mud.
In the spring, though, when the water drained, the pond became a bowl roughly 60 yards long and 20 yards wide. They called it “the ditch” in their 49-house subdivision.
And this, for a decade, was RJ Harvey’s ditch.
The ditch birthed dreams. When the boy turned five or six, old enough to replace the tiny football he cradled at night with a real one, Robert Harvey would get off work and walk his son down to throw.