But each of us has smaller triumphs - those choice little moral victories that lift us so high we want to raise our fists and shout, "YEAH!"
The sweetest of mine had little to do with improving my life, teaching me lessons or making me a better person. They just made me feel incredibly good.
Debbie won, of course. She quietly played with her toys while I ran around the shop like a little hellion. Bubbie gave Debbie a dime and me a consolation nickel. She let me take Debbie to the candy store to spend the money.
I teased Debbie that since my nickel was so much bigger than her dime, it obviously had more value and Bubbie must have made a mistake. She went for it and swapped.
I'll never forget the look on Debbie's face when I walked out of the candy store with two Hershey Bars and she had only one. I also won't forget that it was the last time I ever got the better of her.
The batter hit an infield grounder and the runner charged home like a locomotive on steroids. The shortstop fired the ball to me and I had an instant to decide whether to block the plate like a man or cower to safety in front of our teammates and spectators.
I stood my ground. The runner lowered his shoulder and knocked me to the backstop. But I held onto the ball and the sucker was out.
When I came to, my coach was standing over me shaking his head. "Shapiro," he said, "you've got more guts than brains." It's still the best compliment I ever received.
I slipped and skidded halfway down the hill on my butt, then rolled the rest of the way like a runaway beer keg. I was covered with thick, sticky, smelly, black mud. The players and parents stared at me with slack jaws.
IT was too late to go home and change. If I delayed the game, it would be too late to finish before dark. So the umpire hosed me down while the first-baseman's mother, who demands anonymity, berated me for disgracing myself and everyone who knows me.
Three innings into the game, parents still were too busy laughing at me to follow the play. They sent the first-baseman's mother to ask me the score. She took the shortcut down the hill and hit the same spot I had with the same result - a long, muddy slide on her butt square into the backstop.
The first-baseman, who quit baseball after that year, and his teammates watched with slack jaws. The umpire called timeout. "That was the best bachi I ever saw," he told me.
All I could say was, "YEAH!"
