Sure, I can toss them. But, that would be ridiculous. It would be like tossing out my puppy because he cannot figure out how to poo outside. In other words, my inability to stay away from the food is temporary. The pants will become tourniquets again and I will staple my mouth closed.
After spending a nice afternoon with Wildcat walking through an uncrowded mall, I sat on the sofa reading, relaxing, watching the fire, and letting the puppies run wild when I heard from the big lefty.
He was out with Hawk tossing the baseball at his elementary school when he saw his middle school baseball coach who immediately recognized him.
At that point they had a nice chat about the last several years of his life. He was surprised to hear that he was playing D I baseball when the rest of his class mates fizzled out athletically in high school. While they chatted, the big guy thanked the coach for cutting him from the 8th grade basketball A team. He said that it made him focus on baseball since it seemed that his ambition to make it to the NBA was now over at the age of thirteen. That's right. A budding career derailed by the coach who could not see his ability to dribble and cross over in the lane.
He laughs about it today, but I remember the day that he was cut from the A squad like it was yesterday. Ready?
Fade to black.....
The school sponsored a late bus for after school activities, so I was not worried about picking him up after try outs. Instead, I met with a colleague at Starbucks to go over the tenure and promotion policy at the university. It seems that when my son was cut from the varsity, I was almost cut from the university since the administrator and I did not see eye to eye on my scholarship, so my colleague met with me to give me my options which did not include poisoning the administrator with a lethal chocolate caramel cookie (kidding.....although, this guy was not a nice man.....and I am not kidding about that). And so, we sat and chatted when I got a call from a crying kid who was sitting at the bus transfer point looking for me. He was inconsolable over the phone and I had to cut my conversation about job security short and run to find this sad boy.
I apologized to my colleague for having to leave as I ran out the door and zipped the car down the pike to find him. As I turned into the parking lot, there he was....sitting with his head down on the curb with his back pack on his back. He looked lost and incredibly upset. And so, it was another Lifesavers moment as I did my best to be therapeutic and help him to feel better....to no avail....rats! It was time for dad to get involved since I had run out of mom things to say.....he was so upset, I pitied him.
And so, once he calmed down, he was placed on the B team with his friends and they went on to win every game except one. He was the big star on the team, but still bitter about the A team. With that said, in March, I threw a basketball birthday party for him in my university's gym for his B team. After I brought out a cake that said "We're number two" on it....and all was sort of well.
Now these memories are etched in my mind as something quite traumatic and he is telling the coach that he was glad that he was cut. OH MY GOODNESS!
Yes, I know that all things work together for good, but to go back to the guy after I spent years feeling bad for him, he is telling the coach that he was secretly happy about it.
My take on it? Yikes! That's it...yikes.....
More about his chat with the coach later. I have to return to the first floor to make dinner...which I don't need tonight....or any night for a week....
Peace!
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