Griffin hasn’t quite picked up on what a nerd his daddy is. He’s always asking me about the sports I used to play. A few weeks ago he asked me where I played college football. I laughed. “Boise State,” I said. “Where else would I have played?”
But when Laura’s within earshot, I have to be a bit more honest and tell him I didn’t actually play any team sports, per se. On the way to his baseball practice, I told him the only real sport I did was track. I did my best to make it sound cool, leaving out the polyester micro-shorts or the fact that I only made the team because I had a valid student ID. Kids don’t care about those details. I told him I used to run long distance.
“And then what?” He said.
“And then nothing. We ran. Really far.”
“Oh,” he said. “Like a race. That’s cool.”
He didn’t sound convinced.
I told him how I won a high-jump competition, leaving out the part where there were no other competitors or that the bar was literally as low as it could go without actually touching the mat, and even then I kept knocking it down.
“But when you played soccer,” he said, “you were on a team with a coach?”
I told him it’s a gray area. I had a friend who used to play soccer. His mom was the coach, and sometimes we would play in his backyard and she would make us Kool-Aid, so it was kind of like I was on the team.
I bought Griffin a contraption the other day—my brother had one growing up and we called it a “pitch back.” It’s like a vertical trampoline you throw a baseball at and it bounces back to you. I felt nostalgic putting it together, thinking of our old house on Woodland Drive and my brother, Jeff, spending hours pitching the baseball at it (and myself spending hours bouncing He-Man and Star Wars figures off of it). Griffin crouched next to me and helped string the net in place, and it was one of those proud moments when I saw so much of myself in my little son.
But then Miles came outside wearing a pair of goggles, knee-high socks, and a light-saber tucked into his belt. “Cool,” he said. “This can be our spy base.” And I remembered Miles is my son, and I have no idea where Griffin came from.
6 comments:
I can't stop laughing... I know exactly what goggles your talking about and I can't stop laughing...
Thanks for the laugh! Be sure to tell Griffin about the Thanksgiving you came in from playing in the family football game and when mom asked you why you didn't go out and play, you said because football hurts with the "and why would anyone do anything that hurts" firmly implied in your response. I think you and why watched the parade.
Mike, you still make your sports involvement sound "cool". I can't wait to throw the ball with Griffin as long as Captain Star War's will let us land at his base?
I can see Miles since I have seen him at the cabin in helmet and riding goggles playing his DS sitting on the couch with his legs crossed, Oh what a man! So Mike if you were and are anything like Miles there is wonderful laughs in store for another generation... LOL
Grandpa Larry
Were you wearing your goggles and cape while putting the pitch back together? Remember when we would use mom's dish towels with the ducks on them as capes and we'd run around throwing darts at the rocking horse. That was awesome.
Matt -- Of course I remember. That was just last summer. Good times.
Boys I remember, and that hand crafted rocking horse had thousands of holes it, and I wish that it was just last summer, you would still be home.
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