The Under Review - Issue 4 | Summer 2021

HILL 17
And then I swung away—and connected with a life I’d always imagined. I’m a writer and educator flying
solo in a quirky little Ohio town full of other artists. I have lovely neighbors and even better friends. At my
house: books on my built-ins, paintings and collages and rough drafts in my studio, a make-shift bar on my
back patio.
And until he retired last year, Marty on the radio.
From March to September, if it’s not raining, I’m working out in the yard or the garden, the Reds on an old
transistor radio I bought at a brick-and-mortar RadioShack. On free summer afternoons, I’ll drive down to
Cincinnati for a day game. One colleague became a best friend when we discovered a shared love of
baseball. The first Mother’s Day after my mom died, she and her wife went to the game with Dad and me.
Five years later, he said that was one of his favorite days at the ballpark, and for Christmas, he gave me
three front-row-seats-down-the-first-base-line tickets: one for me, one for my friend, one for her wife.
“Make sure you tell them how much I enjoyed that game together,” he said.
Every year on Grandma’s birthday, March 27, I renew my Rosie Reds membership. I dress up for the day,
no matter what’s on my agenda. I download the season schedule and write all the day games and home
series on my summer calendar; I highlight away games that have the best road trip potential—priority on
parks I haven’t yet visited. I listen to a spring training game on the trusty transistor, and I have cold fried
chicken and beer for dinner.
ISSUE 4 | SUMMER 2021