Walk-Away J

                I pondered for days on end trying to come up with a good title and subject for my blog. I thought about writing about some enjoyable things in life, for instance: shoes, hats, clothes, sports and people. But I was still stuck because none of those sounded substantial enough to me.  So after talking to my good friend Kory about this blogging situation one night, he gave me some good advice and told me, “Why don’t you just write about your favorite subject?” It took me two seconds to decide on a topic after that. I’m sure you’ve read the title, so you know the blog is all about me. What can possibly get better than that? (I know that is what all of you that are reading this is thinking at this very moment.)You will get to take a journey into my mind each week, and learn the ins and outs of Jalen and how Jalen’s mind works. I will be referring to myself in the third person every now and then. My government teacher does that quite frequently and I think it’s pretty awkward when he does it, but when I do it… it makes sense. I’m going to start off by giving you a personal, but very true anecdote about when I was younger. Just to help you get a sense of what my life has been like.

 The story begins when I was just a young lad, maybe 11 or 12 years old. The Holbrook All-Stars little league team was playing a tough St. Johns team; it was an elimination game, so the urgency was there. It was a battle throughout the first 6 innings, and then we finally made it to the 7^th inning. We held St. Johns from scoring, so it’s a tie 5-5 with my team up to bat. I remember this all like it just barely happened, so I’m not exaggerating at all or anything, keep that in mind. All of a sudden I am up to bat with 2 outs and Ilacian on 3^rd base. The winning run is on 3^rd, all I have to do is get a single and we win the game. But you know me I have to go above and beyond that. So I tell myself, “I think it’d be pretty cool if you hit a homerun right now.” I step into that batter’s box with so much confidence. I know I’m going to hit a homerun, but it’s all about the dramatics. I take the first strike right down the middle, I see it coming and decide in a split second that it would be too easy and wouldn’t make for any fun or excitement. The second pitch comes my direction and in my opinion it was too low but the ump called a strike. I’m down 0-2 in the count and when the 3^rd pitch comes I swing the bat as hard as I could. The ball jumps from the bat; it soars at least 500 yards maybe even more but we all lost sight of it after it went over the playground. I touched home plate and the whole team jumped on me, we were all ecstatic. It was a walk-off homerun, and ever since then when you talk about little league baseball you have to bring up the legend of “Walk-Away J”. After that nail-biter of a game we went to a pizza joint and I remember I ate good that night. I felt bad for whoever was paying. I think I knocked off a good 3-4 pizzas by myself and at the minimum 25 wings. The moral of the story is: if you believe it, you can achieve it.

                That was the first of many stories from my youth. I won’t blame you or get upset if you run up to me after class asking for my autograph once you’ve read this; it happens. Just make sure you have your own pen because we all know I do not come to school prepared.