Living Between the Lines

By Frank Saponaro

They were a house of Saps, six in all with Momma and Poppa Sap, managing the family circus. He wasn't always known as supersonic Sap, but he soon learned what he was capable of achieving. The world around him changed, and so did his name. He got busy, Living Between the Lines.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Aug 16, 2022
• ISBN: 9781662484605

Book preview

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Living Between the Lines

Frank Saponaro

Copyright © 2022 Frank Saponaro

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING

Conneaut Lake, PA

First originally published by Page Publishing 2022

ISBN 978-1-6624-8457-5 (pbk)

ISBN 978-1-6624-8460-5 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Part 1

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

Part 2

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

References

About the Author

Part 1

1

They say he was born with a ball in his stubby little baby hands. Stories were told of how, as a toddler confined to his highchair, he learned how to heave a knuckle meatball and to let fly a breaking baby bottle fastball. After catching a glimpse of the Philadelphia Phillies baseball games on the tube, he deduced that he, too, should throw his arsenal of objects around the horn, as if turning two on a double play ball. With a swish of her tail, Inky, the family cat, a midnight black feline, and fan of fast stuff, gave him the signal for a changeup.

Great idea, he thought, so he wound up and unleashed a shock an awe screwball.

Necessity is the mother of invention, so that's when his mother decided to replace all the glass baby bottles with plastic bottles and Barney sippy cups for a much cleaner and safer playing/eating environment.

Although they didn't quite know it at the time, his older brother and sister, affectionally known as Philly the Silly and Ootchy the Ouchy were his prime cheerleaders and partners in crime with his impish exploits. His younger brother, Baldy, famous for his bulbous, bald head, seemed to be content to watch the shenanigans of his middle brother from the safety of his playpen. They were a house of Saps, six in all with Momma and Papa Sap, managing the family circus.

2

And for as long as he can remember, he and his siblings had an extensive and exotic collection of balls of various sizes, shapes, and function. With every passing holiday, birthday, or religious commemorative moment, someone in the Sap family was bestowed with some type of a ball-related toy. At first, these gifts included a garden variety of Wilson brand of balls as well as the infamous hard-black rubber mega-bouncing Wham-O Super Ball.

The Super Ball is a toy bouncing ball based on a type of synthetic rubber invented in 1964 by Chemist Norman Stigley. When dropped from shoulder level, a Super Ball bounces nearly all the way back. If thrown down by the average person, it can bound over a three-story building! Spin it with some wicked English, and it would bounce unpredictably. The randomness of this ball's flight makes it both fun and terrifying at the same time.

As was the case with Bobby Bones Bonetti, an up-and-coming saxophone musician, neighbor, and kindred-spirit to the Sap family. Bobby was belting out the Flight of the Bumble Bee on his horn when on the downbeat, Sap launched an erratic bouncing Super Ball. After his actions, he began to think that his deed was a blunder and a severe miscalculation on his part. Somewhere in his pea brain, he seemed to recall the universal golden rule, No ball playing in the house.

The rogue ball proceeded to gain momentum, bouncing off the ceiling, then careening off the dining room table, breaking an ashtray, and on its decaying trajectory, heading toward the gaping mouth of Tippy, Bobby's Airedale puppy. Tippy