The Buck stops here. At least I’m hoping he does and that he brings a friend. It might seem greedy because supplies are limited but I got an early jump last week and ordered two.
Other Islanders may plan for summer by flipping through garden supply catalogues or ordering deer-resistant plants that won’t attract fawns, does and bucks.
Not me. I’m all about those Bucks; however, note that I use the capital B here — as in Shelter Island’s collegiate baseball-playing Bucks. That’s what I’m talkin’ about!
Hosting a Buck
My 2020 order specifically requested “young” Bucks but not because I’m an over-the-hill cougar. As a former Bucks host, it’s been my experience that younger ones are still a little bit afraid of adults and that fear factor goes a long way in creating a lovely, copacetic atmosphere for me (and let us not forget, dear friends, it’s all about me).
Ours is a smallish three-bedroom house, especially when measured against other Shelter Island homes. But over past seasons we’ve shared this “enchanted cottage in the woods” as one Buck’s mom so graciously described it, with Johnny, Troy, Ben, Spencer, Ryan, Nick, Isiaah, Jake and Jonas.
Buck-proofing our home
The biggest drawback isn’t our small house though, it’s that we are small people. Not little people, just smallish, and apparently getting smaller, so the pots and pans I have hanging within easy reach, tend to clonk our Bucks on their heads.
That means I have to Buck-proof low points throughout the house and also clean the top of the refrigerator. (At the start of the ‘18 season, I found the misplaced invitation to Taylor’s high school graduation party up there. She finished college three years ago. Don’t judge me.)
A friend who’s thinking about ordering her own Buck asked if they create extra clutter. (Not a close friend, obviously.) We discovered years ago that we are the reason we can’t have nice things.
When our kids left for college we looked forward to finally having a tidy, clutter-free empty nest. It was quite the shock to discover that they weren’t the slobs, we were!
Sharing Island mysteries
Most of the Bucks we’ve fostered came from urban areas so Shelter Island was like a foreign country.
“Why is it so dark here at night? Where’s the car wash? What happened to the sidewalks? Where’s the Starbucks? Look! Look! Look! A bunny! Eew, this bug I just squished smells really bad!”
One Buck’s mom described a panicked text from him at 2AM because a big moth in his room was flying around the light.
BUCK: Mom! What do I do?
MOM: Turn out the light.
Contagious positive energy
I love the positive energy these boys bring to our house. It’s contagious. I like that they take wins in stride and get over losses with a shrug and “we’ll do better next time.” I like that they leave their shoes at the front door even though we don’t and that they’re steady on their feet and can reach high places in a single stretch.
I like that they say, “Nah. I’m fine,” two hours after they’ve had dinner, but when I bring out a platter of grilled cheese sandwiches, they eat them anyhow.
I like that they take their hats off in the house and stand up when introduced to family and friends and never give up trying to get our nasty dog to play with them. I like how they’ll look for us at home games and when they spot us, acknowledge with a nod or a wave or even by pointing the bat at us right before a homerun swing.
I especially like how they don’t care that I can get kind of noisy and holler their names and once was part of a large group of incensed hosts, parents, grandparents and local clergy who nearly got thrown out of the ballpark for being too rowdy towards an outrageously biased umpire. That was fun!
Step up to the plate
It’s exciting that baseball season is almost here and with it all that good stuff, like singing the National Anthem and hearing “batter up!” and eating hotdogs at the field, and root, root, rooting for the home team. And even the occasional clonk of a forehead hitting a cast iron skillet.
If you’ve got space to spare — a bed and room in the fridge — and are interested in housing a Buck for June and/or July, give any one of these team coordinators a call:
- Adam Bundy, 859-532-8449
- Ken McGuiness, 631-574-7849
- Julie O’Shea, 917-405-6750
“Love is the most important thing in the world, but baseball is pretty good, too.”
Yogi Berra
‘The Buck stops here’
This post is the latest installment of Joanne Sherman’s Off the Column column, with new work appearing every other Tuesday. Follow this link to find past columns.
To learn more about the Shelter Island Bucks, visit the team’s page at the Hamptons Collegiate Baseball League website, hamptonsbaseball.org.
A former Associate Editor of the Shelter Island Reporter, Joanne Sherman has won multiple awards for her humor columns in both the Suffolk Times and the Reporter. Her essays have appeared in the New York Times, Southern Living, Cosmopolitan, Family Circle and other publications. She wrote a column, “Can We Talk”, in Toastmaster, a magazine for Toastmasters International, and was an award-winning humorist/commentator for WPBX radio in Southampton. She and her husband, Hoot Sherman, live on Shelter Island.
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