I had to chuckle the other day when I received a newsletter in the mail from the University of Wisconsin’s Philosophy Department.

I know it’s hard to believe, but one of my college majors was philosophy.

Besides some of the newsletter’s topics, I got the biggest chuckle out of the computer-generated mailing label:

Michael G. Scharnow
Vice President
FH Softball League

Recollection of that title from the 1980s made me want to run down to the village Pub and have a cold beer, but alas, Terra Nostra wouldn’t let me in with my cute red gym shorts and mud-stained cleats.

I have to wonder how Wisconsin’s Philosophy Department got that title under my name, but I’ll proudly let it remain and perhaps receive more newsletters (funny, I don’t remember receiving any others the past 20 years).

While serving as vice president of the Fountain Hills Softball League, however, I did contemplate many philosophical musings while up to bat or playing the infield near first base.

For example, when lefty Dave Petrick would come to the plate I would begin pondering the metaethics of how to deal with one of his hard line drives without having to sacrifice a few of my teeth.

While at the plate, I would ponder the epistemology of trying to slam it over the right fielder’s outstretched glove or simply shifting my weight and try for a bloop single to left field?

Under the auspices of the Institute for Research in the Humanities, I would listen to various coaches gripe about certain league rules or how the umpires were making their calls, wondering if the humanity of being a vice president actually meant putting up with this pettiness on a Sunday afternoon at home.

I had no doubt about the time and motion in relativistic quantum mechanics when certain batters would come to the plate and show off their long ball prowess at Four Peaks Field.

Charlie Vascellaro, aka The Wizard of Waste, and I would often debate “conventionalism and the contingency of conventions” as we exchanged newspaper summaries of our respective games containing as many nicknames and light-hearted taunts as we could.

One of my old professors, Ivan Soll, apparently has had a busy 12 months – teaching at The University of the Bosphorus in Istanbul, presenting an essay in Rome, teaching in London and presenting yet another paper (on the nature of illusion) at the Einstein Forum in Berlin.

Whew!

As for me, I’ve presented a few essays on this very page the past 12 months and pondered the aesthetic experience of undergoing yet another review of the sign ordinances by the Town of Fountain Hills.

I learned that faculty member Lester Hunt is completing two edited books, one being a book of essays on the classic television series “The Twilight Zone.”

I’m wondering if I should compile a book of essays on our own Twilight Zone known as Town Council meetings, especially ones dealing with Tot Lots.

Still, I can’t help but be envious of Larry Shapiro, who was on sabbatical during 2007-08 and spent half the year in Sydney, Australia.

I could certainly go on sabbatical and contribute to the paper “Photography as a Selective Recreation of Reality: Why Photography Qualifies as Art.”

Why, what is life without art? What is art without life?

And what the heck is softball without cold beer and hot chicken wings?