Tenth man on the field

Palm Coast Observer
Opinion

Before every School Board meeting, a student sings the national anthem. And before every School Board meeting, I rock slightly in place, stare down at the carpet and imagine I’m a big-league ballplayer about to take the field.

I’m a power pitcher, or a speedy shortstop, back-flipping in place like Ozzie Smith. Or maybe I’m a hard-hitting first basemen.

I’m anything in the world but a reporter, missing my slow-pitch softball game to cover this meeting.

But that’s not to say I hate local politics. Just as the rest of you did, I caught myself tensing up before they voted to close Heritage Academy last week.

The whole thing was like the climax of a war epic. I put in the time. I invested in the characters. Yeah, at the end of “Apocalypse Now,” you basically know Marlon Brando is a goner — Martin Sheen didn’t trek through the jungle and dance with his shirt off all that time for nothing.

Still, something happens to you when you actually see him slaughtered.

Going into these meetings, it’s important to think of yourself more as a specialist, more as an athlete with a list of superstitions and rituals, than a viewer. It’s not just a School Board meeting; it’s my School Board meeting. This is my beat, for better or worse. And the national anthem, just as it’s the board’s warm-up, is mine.

It’s when I get my game face on.

When the song nears its end, my expression is different from what it was before. Black lines are smeared underneath my eyes which, if you look closely, reflect the glow of stadium lights over a baseball diamond a million miles away.

By the time “ and the home of the brave” rolls around, I’m juiced. I catch Sue Dickinson’s eyes from across the room and shoot her a point like a good catcher to his pitcher. “This is your time,” the point says. “Just like in practice.”

I bounce in place to limber up, then dance my fingers over my laptop. I imagine the player cards they’ll sell of me, all of my iconic poses pressed onto cardboard and packaged with hard, tasteless bubblegum. Kids will talk trades: “I’ll give you my Cavaliere Typing for your Cavaliere Yawning — no, your Cavaliere Cleaning His Glasses On His Shirt!”

One time, I got so excited I caught myself in the stands taking off residents’ hats and signing them.

“That’s right, sport; if you try your best and stay in school, you can grow up to be a journalist just like me!” I told an angry-looking elderly man, patting his head and forcing into his hands an autographed copy of the Palm Coast Observer.

That’s when I realized it was possible I was taking this ritual thing maybe just a bit too seriously.