The other day, we were driving in Western New York between
two canal towns known as Spencerport (my hometown) and Brockport which is 7
miles away. An interesting challenge
came about. As we were driving along
the canal Jenn asked me if I thought I could swim across it. I said
most likely I think I could make it but not really sure because of the 28°
temperature. On top of that, I am the
worst swimmer that I know of.
Quick history lesson, the Erie Canal basically runs over 360
miles from the Atlantic Ocean all the way to Buffalo New York. It varies
in width much as a river would. Basically,
it’s a long ways across. So the
challenges continued with: “could you do
this…? could you do that…?” It escalated
to the final challenge…I told Jenn that nobody could ever throw a football over
the canal. She claimed that she thought she could throw a softball across the
entire distance of the Erie Canal. Now
don’t get me wrong, before Jenn transferred over to track and field her senior
year of high school, she was a noted softball player. She was known to have quite an arm from
centerfield to the plate, but this was a much different type of throw. I was laughing at the thought of it thinking
there is no way Jenn or anybody else is ever going to throw a softball across
the Erie Canal with it snowing outside at 28 degrees.
I pulled the car over and got out. Jenn grabbed a softball from the back that
she keeps in the car to roll out sore muscles on. The whole time she was warming her arm up
spinning it in circles, I was laughing because we were at one of the wider
parts of the canal with a total headwind.
I figured at best the ball might
get halfway across. So the challenge
was set. Jenn started from the car with an approach that
looked like a javelin thrower all the way to the edge of the canal in about 4
inches of snow. As soon as she released
the ball I figured I had the challenge easily won. The trajectory was way too high; the wind
coming towards us was certainly going to stop the ball way short. At
first it looked like a 9-iron shot with way too much height, but that ball kept
going and going and going! What looked
to be a 9-iron shot started to look more like a five wood shot, then a three
wood shot and then a jumbo driver. It
bounced about 2 feet on the other bank rolling across and down the other side.
I could not believe it! I seriously
could not believe!
Growing up next to the canal my whole life my
friends and I would try to throw anything across it: footballs, baseballs,
rocks, you name it. Nobody was ever been able to conquer the
throw. When I first got out of the car I
was laughing thinking how fun it would be to see her try to make the
throw. When I got back in the car I was
laughing thinking that nobody’s ever going to believe me. Whatever the case,
somebody on the other side of the canal has a shiny new softball thrown by the
Olympic gold medalist on a cold, snowy afternoon.
