In the pantheon of patience, Job boasts the ultimate reputation.

But though it pains me to quibble with the biblical narrative, so far as I can determine from the historical record, Job never coached T-ball.

Which relegates him to second place in my book.

Or on deck, if you prefer.

Even Job, I suspect, would be unable to suppress a brief grimace while trying to guide a five-year-old toward first base when the kid is determined to sprint straight from home plate to second.

(Which, I have to admit, is logical to anyone who understands the value of a shortcut but is not terribly familiar with the rules of baseball. Which is a category that includes many five-year-olds.)

I had been away from T-ball for quite a number of years but the sport is much as I remember it.

Which is to say, an event with a facade of orderliness yet also a palpable sense that at any instant it could devolve into a debacle involving tears, dust, and diminutive, grass-stained knees.

I have returned to the game, as a spectator, thanks to my grandson, Brysen, who turned four in February and is donning a leather glove and a cap for the first time this spring.

T-ball, notwithstanding the atmosphere of scarcely controlled chaos, is appealing in the way typical of games that involve small children gamboling about. Their energy is infectious, their antics inevitably amusing.

There is a unique cuteness to a kid of kindergarten age clad in a uniform, running for all she’s worth, to stand in triumph on a base and then turn toward the bleachers, beaming and waving at her individual cheering section.

Brysen took to T-ball right off. He makes his way around the base paths with glee, and when he makes it safely to the next station he often crosses his arms across his little chest, as though to mark the accomplishment.

(Not that anyone has to worry about being tagged out. In T-ball all the players touch all the bases in each inning, of which there are two. Which is just the right number of innings.)

While watching Brysen’s games I’ve found myself focusing, in between his and the other players’ particularly funny shenanigans, on the coaches.

I can only marvel at their ability to handle a situation that, like certain radioactive isotopes, is inherently unstable and prone to explosive behavior.

Coaching on a field with a couple dozen four-, five- and six-year-olds is roughly akin to teaching a kindergarten class or running a daycare center, but with the added element of possibly being struck by an aluminum bat or beaned with a baseball.

I have many times winced, anticipating a painful blow, while watching a coach kneel beside the tee and help a player grip the bat in the proper way.

And even when the coaches are out in the field, safely out of bat range, they have to disassemble the wriggling mound of dusty humanity that forms almost every time a batted ball appears in the vicinity.

These coaches are, of course, volunteers.

They donate their time not for the prospects of glorious victories — score is not kept in T-ball, and there is no state tournament — but so that kids can get outside and give their fine motor skills a workout.

This is no small contribution.

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A neighbor lopped off the top of a tree a block or so to the west of our place and brought Elkhorn Peak right into our living room.

Rarely, if ever, have I more appreciated a bit of chain saw surgery.

I noticed the arrival of the great sedimentary peak on a recent day when I was home for lunch. I was looking out the window at the west end of our house, mainly to gauge the volume of twigs our weeping willow had shed during the latest bout of gusts.

But as my eyes lifted from the yard to the horizon, I was taken aback by what I saw.

There was the familiar triangular tip of Elkhorn Peak, second-tallest summit in the range and, from most vantage points in Baker City, the dominant one.

As is often the case with familiar sights, I had never really seen that amputated tree’s higher limbs until they were gone.

I’ve lived in my house for almost 26 years, but at that moment, as I gazed at Elkhorn Peak, I felt almost as though the place were new to me.

Although Elkhorn Peak, at 8,931 feet, falls 175 feet short of its nearby neighbor, Rock Creek Butte, I’ve long had a special affinity for the former, mainly, I suspect, because I see it much more often.

It’s not so precise as a calendar, to be sure, but I much prefer to gauge the succession of the seasons by having a look at Elkhorn Peak’s steep east face. After a mid-winter storm it is pure white, all of its dark brown nubs of ancient stone temporarily plastered. During spring and summer the white splotches gradually shrink until, around the time August replaces July, the last bright patch disappears, leaving the peak barren, maybe for only two months but perhaps for as long as three and half, what with the vagaries of autumn storm.

Now, suddenly and unexpectedly, I can have a look at the peak while relaxing on the soft cushions of our sofa.

It’s a revelation, as welcome as a new pair of contact lenses.

Jayson Jacoby is editor of the Baker City Herald.