CARL'S CORNER

Sept. 1, 2012 – Carl Gustafson CA Regional Tri-Director (San Diego)

The first time I met Steve Simmons he was wearing a warm and pleasant smile, his eyes bright and friendly and he immediately set me at ease.

I was organizing my first tournament for Senior Softball USA and Steve was there to help me.

About 30 teams had descended on the ball fields and I was nervous as a long tail cat in a room full of rocking chairs.

Steve was calm and reassuring.

He was that way about everything he did for all of us in Senior Softball: calmly getting things done behind the scenes, never seeking the glory, giving others the credit, quietly working, filling the gaps, solving problems, sticking his finger in the hole so the dam wouldn’t break, keeping things together while the more emotional among us would rant and rave.

His sudden death from a boating accident should warn us all that life has no guarantees except that it will end, for some sooner than expected.

So it behooves us to take a kind and loving attitude to the ball fields, forget the rages and resentments, the bickering and nit picking, because it’s just a game, and what really matters are the fragile friends who play it together in their last years on earth.

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote these lines that seem to explain it all so clearly:

The days come and go and they say nothing

And if you do not use the gifts they bring,

They carry them as silently away

Steve was a gift to senior softball. He was a kind and humble man who gave because he loved all of you — and he loved the game of softball.

This is a tribute to ensure that we don’t let him go as silently away