The summer of 1990 I lived and worked in the Andes Mountains near Cuenca, Ecuador. The main focus was building latrines and planting trees, but we also taught baseball to the local kids. The bat was made of bamboo, and the ball was a rock, both wrapped in duct tape.
I played Little League baseball (ages 6-12). My last year I made the Arlington County All-Star Team (Virginia) as a first baseman, but then ultimately chose to play tennis in middle and high school. Historically speaking, I know more about baseball than any other sport.
This was a good team, but I left FOP the following year to play for Optimist. I later played basketball in high school. Basketball is still my favorite sport.
My first job in San Francisco was as a bilingual volunteer coordinator at the 30th Street Senior Center. In all my years of travel abroad I never spoke more Spanish than at the senior center.
The first print reference to a “promposal” was in the Dallas Morning News in 2001. Our mariachi-inspired band publicly serenaded our dates ten years earlier.
Daniel W. Polk 