How Y'all Doing? Misadventures and Mischief from a Life Well Lived

by Leslie Jordan

During the interview, I told Wisdom about my fear of throwing the first pitch out when I had never thrown a baseball in my life. When the interview was over, he told me that he coached Little League and if I wanted, he could teach me to pitch. I was ecstatic.

I ran out to the pitcher’s mound with a baseball in hand. I silently prayed, Dear God, please help this pitch be in loving memory of my forty-nine murdered comrades, and I suppose I must pray for the soul of the young man who committed this heinous crime. So please let this pitch be in memory of the fifty who died. But most of all, I would like for this pitch to be in memory of my daddy, Major Allen Bernard Jordan, who gave his life in service to his country.

Through all of this major hubbub, I keenly felt the presence of my dad. He was such a loving and kind man. I knew he would have been so proud. There was something lifted from my shoulders.

Honey, if embellishment were a sin, I would be sitting in a roaring fire with Beelzebub right now.

The same thing happened with my tale of the first pitch. The story grew bigger and bigger. It took on a life of its own. It was as if I could not help myself.

Good Lord, what is wrong with me? I sometimes think I need to be watched after. The truth, especially in the case of this amazing story, is so much better without adding fictional devices to hold the audience’s attention.

Michelle Obama? In all her dignified glory. For some reason, I knew the moment I saw her in the front row that the story needed to be told without any embellishment. There is something very direct and open about the way Mrs. Obama looks in your direction. There is great beauty in knowing what you see is what you get, and I felt I owed her the same.

So, to all my dear new friends, this is not goodbye forever. It is only goodbye for now. Goodbye till I get revved up and ready to launch into a whole bunch of new stories. See you then.