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 Find Your Peanut Fastball
by Patrick Clapp
 A feeling of stagnation, of spinning my mental wheels has settled into me in the past many weeks. Recently I have been casting about for a clutch and a floor shifter (and feeling like I am going nowhere).
The Encyclopedia Britannica has the following to say about the dog days of summer:
"...periods of exceptionally hot and humid weather that often occur in July, August, and early September in the northern temperate latitudes. The name originated with the ancient Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians; they believed that Sirius, the dog star, which rises simultaneously with the Sun during this time of the year, added its heat to the Sun's and thereby caused the hot weather. Their belief that dogs were subject to spells of madness at this time also may have contributed to the name. Because people tended to become listless during the dog days, Sirius was held to have a detrimental effect on human activities."
Merriam-Webster links stagnation to its root, stagnant:
" Main Entry: stagnant
Pronunciation: 'stag-n&nt
Function: adjective
1 a : not flowing in a current or stream |stagnant water| b : STALE |long disuse had made the air stagnant and foul -- Bram Stoker|
2 : not advancing or developing"
For about a week and a half I have been trying to decipher a message from Ben Franklin. Ben and I were sitting across from each other at a table in a tavern. It was one of those battered, heavy wooden tables, a fit home for tankards of ale or a sharp knife pinning the edge of a pirate treasure map to its surface. The place was on the dark side, but had a warm, baked bread sort of feel to it; brick ovens in the back I suppose.
So the founding father and I are finishing up a conversation when he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a single peanut. It is shelled already, unsalted, whole. He looks at it in his hand for a moment and then says to me:
"You have to find your peanut fastball."
And that was about when I woke with a hazy early morning urge to visit the head. The words resonated, they stayed with me - in part because I was determined not to lose such strangely sage advice. I mean to say, this is Ben Franklin we are talking about here. He thought up all sorts of stuff. Who was I to toss his words aside so casually.
And so for the last week or so I have been spinning my wheels trying to decipher it. It could not be a literal request...I doubt I could throw a peanut sixtyish feet at speeds in excess of ninety miles per hour. Peanut Fastball. Perhaps a simple code?
A Stable Flat Pun
Hmmm....that sounds too close to the single joke I knew as a four year old. It was a good one, it went like this:
"Why did the firemen bring a ladder to the bar?"
"I don't know Patrick, why?"
"Because they heard the drinks were on the house!!"
As a four year old, I lacked a few pieces of knowledge:
1. What this joke meant. and
2. Repeating it ad nauseum was counter-productive to the humor (however this, in retrospect, is humorous in itself).
Peanut Fastball -> Flauntable Past?
Could Ben Franklin be telling me in some obscure manner to get a haircut and get a real job? Perhaps he is telling me to get on with my summer projects which are getting dustier and dustier. Those summer projects I use to advance my knowledge base, to make myself more attractive to the heaving corporate beasts. But these are the dog days, those pesky drawn out days of heat and hammocks, days taking devil form upon your shoulder whispering promises of tomorrow and tomorrow. Petty paces from day to day indeed. I believe that old Ben realizes something that I often choose to ignore: The sooner you get started on something, the sooner you finish.
Bewarned summer projects!! I now prowl the night. Articles will be written, databases designed, card games completed, power sets explored...and shimmering in the distance of far off September and the Fall of Summer sits a pedestal topped with a single shining fastball peanut.
Thanks for the heads up, Ben.
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