Vicariously

I was doing what I was supposed to do, at my desk with my head in the the palm of my hand and an elbow at an invisible pivot point on the hard Formica surface. In the other hand, my pencil was moving like a divining rod finding water, as the graphite glided along matching definitions to words that would become part of my weekly English test on Friday.

Miss Brantley‘s stern “Give it up!” startled me, because nobody but my mom had ever put the sneak on me like that.

I gave the white braided cord a quick tug to pop-out the earphone and used the lower part of the cord to fish the green, Emerson, transistor radio from my pocket for surrender and I wondered if I had imagined the teacher stifling a grin but learned I hadn't.

She said I yelped aloud, which I guess I did when Dodger Jim Gilliam blasted a Moe Drabowski pitch (sailed it for a big ride!) over the left field fence for a 2-run homer off of the Cincinnati Redlegs' hurler to help clinch Sandy Koufax’s first win (6-2) of a season that carved 102 Dodger victories onto the 1962 record books