Nay, we are but men. Rock!

I’m not pretending to have been a great basketball player, but it is my first love when it comes to sports and the sport I know the most about.  While my knees (weight gain) keep me from playing the way I want to, I still feel like I could/can teach the sport to others.  The following is a conversation I had the other day with my middle son that led me to believe otherwise.

(Walking home after playing baseball, and with a play ground ball which he had been dribbling.)

Me: “You are a good dribbler.”

MS:  “When I’m a dad, I’m going to play basketball.”

Me:  “I could teach you everything I know about basketball if you would like.”

MS: “DAD … I already know more about basketball than you!”

Me: “Oh …”

MS:  “Barney can do a cool trick with a basketball.” (He then went on to describe the trick.)

Me: (In my head) “I don’t like Barney.”

While taking my oldest to school this morning my life somehow lost its bearings and started morphing into the world of NASCAR. As I pulled up to the curb to drop my son off, the five cars previously unloading their, oh so precious cargo, simultaneously pulled away from the curb, in line towards the exit. For a minute, I thought they were leaving pit row at Daytona, and that if I didn’t hurry I might get off the lead lap. Instead of driving the standard NASCAR car of today, I was stuck in my Dodge Grand Caravan, and most of my competition was women in over-sized gas guzzling SUV’s.

As I was stopped, ready to exit the parking lot watching the crossing guard do her job of stopping traffic and saving kids lives, the guy parked next to me actually looked at me gripped his steering wheel, clinched his teeth, and gave me the classic head nod signaling to me that he wanted to race. He followed this maneuver my laughing, which was good for his sake, because I would have killed him off the line.

I rolled down my window, and jokingly said, “I was just thinking that dropping kids off at school here is just like a pit row for NASCAR.”

“I was thinking the exact same thing,” he replied.

We laughed together, knowing that our deep longing at that very moment was to be on an oval somewhere going 180 mph.

“Good times,” he yelled to me as he drove off.

Good times indeed!