The rule in our house when I was growing up was that if you were too sick to go to school, you were too sick to do anything after school.
It made sense, as I had two sisters who were known ne’er-do-wells and parent manipulators (at least in my mind). But for an innocent 11-year-old, who had been waiting almost half his life for Major League Baseball to come to town and happened to wake up on April 8, 1969 with one of his childhood asthma attacks, it was clearly cruel and unusual punishment.
I’m still not sure how I earned the hall pass that night, but I know the fact my mother took me to the Padres’ first game displayed a remarkable level of compassion or pity, or perhaps both.