Opinion – Judy Harris: Softball and Mothers at Lemker Field 1955 — mothers always on your side

“The nicest thing about teamwork is you always have others on your side.” Margaret Carty

A high school junior and her sister, a recent grad, hoped to organize a women’s softball team for our church, Ludlow Presbyterian, to play in a church league in the summer of 1955. To assemble the necessary nine members, they needed to recruit several of us from the junior high class.

After a few practice sessions at Lemker Field in Ludlow, our season started. As we moved through the six or so games of the season, we kept winning. Though the teams we played were from other towns, all our games were played on Ludlow’s Lemker Field. No away games. Lemker Field seemed to be a premier location.

It appeared the nine of us would have a perfect season…until a complication arose.

There was one final game that promised to be an easy win and our perfect season but…the game was scheduled for the same week of the junior high church camp down in Kentucky, a highlight of any summer and we junior high members of the team were signed up for the camp.

The dilemma. Would we miss the camp or would our team have to forfeit the game because there weren’t the nine members to field a team for this very easy game?

Our mothers, our devoted but meager fan base, volunteered to cover for our being gone to camp. As members of the church, they were eligible to play on the team.

That week, word reached the camp, the team had won the game.

Our softball team led the league with a perfect record, surprising all of us…and we had our week at camp, too.

When I arrived back home at the end of camp, my mother was telling me about the game. The only details I remember now are what she said about the morning after the game. She headed out to run some errands in her Ford Fairlane with its standard stick shift. As she drove, she moaned and got tears in her eyes every time she had to engage the clutch with her foot in order to shift the gears again and again.

Evidently there are some downsides when mothers cover for their daughters in softball games.

“The nicest thing…is you always have (m)others on your side.”

Judy Harris is well established in Northern Kentucky life, as a longtime elementary and university educator. A graduate of Thomas More, she began her career there in 1980 where she played a key role in teacher education and introduced students to national and international travel experiences. She has traveled and studied extensively abroad. She enjoys retirement yet stays in daily contact with university students.