T-Ball Competition!

I had never played T-ball before, so I had no idea what it was until someone told me that it was a variation of baseball for players who were too young to play with the regular settings. They put a ball on a stick (that is the "T") and, since the ball is stationary, it is much easier to hit for the young boys. This perhaps is only played in the US, as the parents here could not wait for their boys to play their favorite game and thus they invented a variation so their sons could start to play. Of course, Steven started to play as soon as he was of the age he could join. Steven was the fourth from left in the top picture and seventh from left in the second top picture.  We had all the equipment and uniforms, I had no idea if they would win or lose, but they had a ball!

 

Chinese Students

Over the years we had quite a number of foreign students coming to the Chemistry Department and other Departments at ETSU to study. In the early years, from 1971 and lasting for a little more than a decade, we had many Taiwanese students on campus. They usually used our home as their their gathering center. They came to play at our place or to hike with me on the weekends. We had cook-outs for them sometimes, and they enjoyed playing games with our kids. And of course, they came to our home to introduce us to their relatives when they came for their graduation. In the picture below, it was Shireley and her mother coming to visit us after the ceremony. Shireley had often baby-sat with our kids, so they knew her very well!

Dancing Lessions

 Margaret started her dancing lessons in the fall of 1978. It was at the Bowman Dancing School on Unaka Avenue. She enjoyed it very much. She went there a couple of times a week and learned some basic dancing steps. And once a session they had a performance and we went there to support her effort. She quit the dancing school only when she joined the cheer-leading group at University School. The pictures below were taken with her in costume in the spring of 1979.