Non-Security post to follow, stop reading now if not interested.  According to Wikepedia the Yiddish or Jewish word naches means: feeling of pride in the achievements of one's children.  Growing up, my grandmother used to use this word all the time to describe the joy she felt whenever my siblings or I would do anything noteworthy.  As I grew up I tended to put this word into the pile of other obscure Yiddish words that my grandmother used.  When she passed away I didn't really know anyone else who spoke the language and I began to forget them.  My mother-in-law used Yiddish words like that as well and I learned some more from her, but when she passed away too, that was pretty much the end of my learning the language.  Today I got an up close and personal lesson on the the meaning of naches. 

As I have written about before my oldest son Landon's (8) baseball team is having a tough season. We have not won one game all season. In fact in many of the games we are not even competitive.  I had moved Landon up to this level of play even though he is a year or more younger than most of the other kids in the league.  The level below though was one he was in for two years and made the all star team last year.  So we moved up to kid pitch and took our chances.  Landon started off slow with the rest of the kids on the team. However, he kept working and has been pitching and playing 2b and SS most of the year.  He has also been working on his hitting.

While most of the kids on our team have shown steady improvement, Landon has really come in to his own.  Not only in raw baseball skills but in situational awareness of the finer points of baseball (knowing when to throw and where).  In today's game our other two pitchers were not at the game. I had Landon pitch the whole game.  He did great, making a bunch of great plays in the field.  He also had three hits, each time picking up an RBI.  He hit the ball hard each time. We lost again, but it was a close game.

At the end of the game, both the umpire and the coach of the other team came over and not knowing Landon was my son told me that he was a great player and the best player on the field.  Last game the coach of the first place team came over to tell me when he picks the all star team to play travel ball, he wants to pick Landon on his team.  After all these years (like the title of my blog), I finally have learned what my Grandmother meant by the word naches!  I am really proud of Landon and all that he is accomplishing in baseball.