My life, baseball, and New York, seemed to intersect in 1978. I was only 6 years old when we moved there, and we only lived there for three years, but baseball was a big part of my life there. I went to my first baseball game, a New York Yankee’s game there. At the game, I asked my dad why a player could run to first and second base. I learned about baseball cards (see previous post in 2025 called Real Life Collector), and I played on my first baseball team.

I didn’t get off to a fast start, because I was struggling to figure out how T-ball worked when I first started. I eventually figured it out, because I got so big, the local newspaper was writing about me. The wrote about other kids too, but mostly about me. In fact, I wish my parents kept all the clippings, because it would have shown how famous I became around the 2nd graders in the area, but they threw them away at some point. Unfortunately I wasted my 15 minutes of fame on being a 2nd grade star. Since then, I’ve been locked out of the fame locker.

I got so obsessed about baseball in second grade, that just like Ray Kinsella from Field of Dreams, I bugged my dad to play catch with me all the time. He was almost always busy, but every once in a while we would have a catch. I vowed that when I became a dad, I would get mostly ignore my son when he wanted to play catch with me. But he was persistent, so he suckered me into doing it a lot more than my dad did with me. Which really sucked, because he threw way harder than I did and I have way more sensitive hands than my dad did. And since he liked to throw more in the fall, my hands were constantly stinging.

While many think of the ending of Field of Dreams as more of about Ray and his dad connecting once via a game of catch, I think of it as the fulfilling of a prophecy of the voices he heard in his head that “If you build it, he will come.” In the distance, you could see cars lined up to watch people come watch Ray and his dad play catch. But really it was to see the field.

Many of the 80’s movies promised a lot of things that would happen in the future. The most famous of those was Back to The Future, in which the filmmakers promised things that would happen in 2015. To give them some credit, they got a few things right. Things they got right: Video Calling, Tablets that took contactless payment, 80’s Nostalgia, endless sequels, collectibles, friendly drones, VR headsets, multi-screen experiences, self-lacing shoes, bionic security scanners, the Miami Marlins (Florida Marlins), and real world AR campaigns, and they were only a year off of the Chicago Cubs winning the World Series, which they did in 2016.

However, as a Bitter Person, I like to focus on the things that Back to The Future didn’t get right. For instance, there is still no time travel, unless you consider going from Australia to the U.S. and it ending up being a day earlier. One of the biggest things I’m bitter about is, of course, the hoverboard. They do exist, but they aren’t really commercially available. And you couldn’t just pull off the handle of a girl’s hover scooter to make yourself a hoverboard so you can run from Biff.

The magnum opus of Back to The Future besides time travel itself, of course, was the flying car. We weren’t even close to one in 2015, and we still aren’t even close. Or are we? Yesterday, Elon Musk combined power of his car company, Tesla, and his rocket company, SpaceX, to demonstrate a prototype of a flying car. Not really a sustained flying car, but I think we may someday finally have one.

However, that isn’t good enough for me. I was promised a flying car by 2015 in Back to the Future. Not only that, but I was promised a 100%, commercially available, (meaning I could afford one) flying car ready in 2015. Just like my father and me, Ray Kinsella and his dad, and me and my son, society needs to catch up. If we can throw a ball back and forth, defying gravity, certainly Elon Musk and the rest of his overpaid engineers should be able to defy gravity with a car that is barely heavier than a ball. I expect him to have my flying car (with at least 8 cupholders, and a 10-year extended warranty) ready for my next car buying experience, which is tomorrow, because my wife and I are going car shopping. In addition, I fully expect to be rich, because my novel became a best seller back in 2015.

In other words, Elon needs to invent time travel by the end of today, go back to 2015, invent flying cars, make sure I’ve changed enough to become a best selling author, and completely change my fate by tomorrow. I don’t ask for much. Just EVERYTHING! One other thing, too. I’m going to need him to fix the 2026 NBA Finals from June. Just fix a few things from Game 4, and the rest will take care of itself.

Though I’m taking a hardline stance on the overall timeline, I’m not picky about how Elon and Marty work out the details. If they need to wreck the whole Space-Time Continuum in order to make my dreams become a reality, I’m fine with the rest of the wreckage.

As far as the Bitter Friday Giftures, I need Marty and Elon to make sure these come out perfectly as well, starting with…

In 1978, there was an intersection of my life…

I went to my first…

And I learned how little I knew…

The one thing I wanted back then…

But he was often too busy…

And played catch with my son…

And when he threw…

Many think of Field of Dreams…

But it was really about a father and son…

To me though, the 80’s movies taught us that…

Such as hoverboards…

But most of all…

Which we asked for all the way back…

So when Elon introduced his flying car concept…

I was appreciative…

And expect him to invent time travel…

By tomorrow..

ARRRRRGGGGHHHHHH

Bitter Time to Catch Up Ben