Fixing the record Barry Bonds broke

Rob likes to get abstract on Will here and there. In fact we both find amusement in trying to explain things that are probably over his head just to see if we can do it and how he’ll take it in. So on Monday Rob, who is only a pseudo-baseball fan, told Will that Barry Bonds was a baseball player who would soon be breaking the all-time record for home-run hitting. He even tried to add in some Hank Aaron history.

Will looked at me with concern and said: “Oh, he’s going to break my record.”

He was thinking of the old-school 45 record-books (including favorites Cinderella and Goldilocks) that his Uncle Graham found for him in a used record shop in California.

We tried to explain that there are records you can see (like his beloved Cinderella record) and records you can’t see. Will knows about home runs from attending Columbus Catfish games and he shoots baskets with surprising accuracy at a mini-basket attached to his bedroom door, so I said it would be sort of like if Will made so many baskets with his basketball that he made more baskets than anyone had ever made before.

Will kept right on with his own line of thinking: “Some day I’m going to drive a big truck and fix that record. I’m going to raise that bucket up and fix it.” (He’s talking bucket trucks here, an obsession for Will that is second only to fire trucks and trash trucks.) “I’m going to use my hammer to fix that record. Then I’ll connect it together.”

Yesterday when Rob announced to Will, that Bonds had indeed broken the record, Will was still determined to protect his beloved 45.

“I’m going to put it way up high so Barry Bonds can’t get it. A bucket raises way up high. ‘Cause he'll break the record.”

I launched into a second fun but futile round of explaining what it means to break those abstract, sporting records. But Will remains a determined repairman, still using the tools and trucks of two days ago: “But I might drive a bucket truck and raise up and then I’d get that big ladder and I’d fix it. I’d put it way up on the roof so he can’t get that record. Then I’m going to fix it with that hammer.”

He was sounding like a broken record. So we surrendered and let him fix it.

Endnote: Rob’s family is full of Braves fans so they probably wouldn’t mind if Will found a way to undo the record-breaking of Barry Bonds. His Nana and Papa were at the April 8, 1974 Braves game when Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruth’s home run record.