I am sitting here looking at a picture of myself when I was a baby. I guess that I was a little over a year old? I am sitting in a baby seat eating a turkey leg. I asked my father if he was afraid that I would choke. He said, "You had some teeth, you could chew." It was 1968, and the hovering over their kids that parents do these days had not yet been invented. I do it also.
The other day, at a 9 year old basketball game, there was a player on the other team, an overweight kid with a headband on and a smart mouth who was pushing my son when the ref was not looking. My heart was beating out of my chest I was so angry. And then his "father" says to the troglodyte, "That is it, stay aggressive." Real nice. Classy. So eventually my son gets irritated at the pushing and pushes back and the kid goes flying. Of course my son gets the foul. Doesn't matter, most of the parent's are all a bunch of babied cowards who think that little league is the BIG leagues because the furthest they have ever gone in athletics is maybe high school where their big job was squirting water in the star player's mouth during timeouts. And all the coaches are screaming and yelling and the kids have no idea what the hell is going on. It is comical. I hate every second of it, crowded gyms with the masses of humanity who yell for the sake of yelling.
Your kid , who you have outfitted with the latest gear that Lebron wears and tights and a special haircut like somebody famous that you admire, does not enjoy you being there. It is written on their faces. (And what about squirting water in the player's mouths? Oh my god, you look at a college football game and there are ten managers or flunkies asking the player's if they need water and then squirting it in their mouths for them . I guess it comes from boxing where the boxer's are wearing gloves so they can not squirt it for themselves. Football players can squirt it for themselves.)
Nobody really plays "pick up" anymore, where no parents are involved or around. My parents never knew if I got pushed or beat up someone or got beat up. In fact, if you told your parents about stuff that went on, you were ostracized forever from the group.
I used to walk through the woods and play basketball with my friends. Alone, I walked through the woods. About a half mile walk. Then I stayed in the woods after the game, carving my name on trees, JS LOVES ....(whomever I was infatuated with at the time. )Yes, I had a knife. I was 10 and we all had pocket knives. And a BB gun.
Now, you are so fearful of letting your kids out of your sight because of the wackos out there. And do not tell me that they do not exist. Two nuts were in the neighborhood the other day trying to entice kids into their car by giving them candy. What the HELL is that crap? Electric chair right away for those scum. Pisses me off royally, that what we had as a country is falling apart. Maybe it is too late. I had a conversation the other day with someone in the know who told me that things were a lot worse than we think they are regarding homeland security and what is going on in our government. Great. But lets just think positive thoughts and just get terrorist's jobs because that is what they really need to just stop their hatred, and lets get the races fighting against each other and lets depend on everybody for every damn thing. Everything is such a touchy subject that folks walk on eggshells and everyone is so sensitive(You can't say THAT!) and we have given much importance and celebrity status to everyone from athletes and actors to youtube daredevils to reality show "stars" who aren't really stars, but just people who look pretty good. TAKE A PICTURE OF THEIR BABY OH MY GODDDDD!
All of them should squat to failure, go bass fishing and go hunting. They wouldn't be worried about the temperature of their latte or what he said/ she said or Oprah's latest weight loss horsecrap if they were thinking about a 8 point buck emerging in the clearing.
But that is just what I think, and I know that I am in the minority. If you have never been outside, really outside, with the sun coming up over loblolly pines and the first bite on your line sending shivers down your spine or maybe at dusk and a lone goose comes setting into your decoys, the utter magic of those scenes, you have a tendency to focus on the little minutiae that the media and the government tells us are important.
I know that those days are gone, the good old days. Maybe the best way to combat all that stuff is to not fight the losing battle but to just take care of your own little circle and ignore the goings on with the rest of the sheep, and just train your own to survive and prosper.
