From my earliest memory I loved to throw things at things. Usually rocks, because they were everywhere. But also apples, berries, snowballs, tomatoes. I wasn’t destructive, I didn’t want to break anything, I just loved the challenge of trying to hit a target. Here is a partial inventory of my boyhood targets – what I hit, and with what:

The window in the doctor’s office. A rock.

Donese’s head while riding her bike. A little green apple from the pastor’s tree. Then, the apology in her living room with her mother presiding.

Oncoming windshields on the interstate at night. Tomatoes. Then, the washing of the car and a state trooper presiding.

Heads, below me in the crowd in the football stadium. Dogwood berries, shotgunned by the handful.

The aluminum storm door across our street. In this case, from my bb gun. My mom denied it for me, though she knew I did it.

Porches. Eggs, at night. Then the police searching our hands with their rude spotlight.

Moving cars, in any setting. Snowballs.

Finally, God intervenes to cure me: Roger and the near-death experience