Hats

"I collect hats.  That's what you do when you're bald." ~ James Taylor

For anyone afforded a decent number of years, I suppose, we come to wear many different hats.  Literal hats and figurative ones.

Considering my literal headgear history, the first place my mind goes is the misshapen black felt cowboy hat I wore to some conspicuity during my tight Wranglers and western boots stage of the early-to-mid nineties.  (If ever there was a photo which perfectly encapsulated the phrase, “all hat, no cattle…”)

Thankfully, there are no digital images of this atrocity in cyberspace as the internets were still on dial-up then and it would have taken two to four hours to upload.  Of all the blessings the Lord hath bestowed upon me, surely this one shall never go unappreciated.

I've worn bandanas, beanies, and baseball caps.  A fisherman hat, scally cap, hard hat, Santa hat, party hat, toboggan, even a fedora.

On the figurative side, I've worn the hat of the aggravating brother, favorite/only son, grandson, nephew, uncle, and a dad.  I've been a trainer and a trainee, boyfriend and ex-boyfriend, radio DJ and furnace helper, bag boy and 911 dispatcher.  A reader, and, hopefully, a writer.

And this month, still in the springtime of this, my sixth-decade of breaths and heartbeats, at the ever so gentle behest of Mrs. Bone, I have added to my hat collection.

In this role, I may be spotted wearing a whistle around my neck, carrying a clipboard, and possibly having mostly civilized conversations with men of a certain age who are adorned in zebra-striped shirts.  Some of whom appear to have serious vision deficiencies.  

All the while trying to corral nine 7-and-8-year-olds.  One of whom, even after three practices, I keep calling another kid's name.

Yes, this fall and continuing into the early winter, I will don the hat of basketball coach for Luke’s 8-and-under youth basketball team.

How is it going, you ask?  Well, hold onto your hats.

At the first practice, one kid started crying no less than SIX different times.  It was probably more like eight or ten, but I don't like to exaggerate.  (Unless it makes something funnier; or earns me some measure of pity, or glory.)

So much for my mantra of "Make Youth Sports Fun Again."

There has been progress.  At the second practice, the same kid only started to cry once, at least that I saw.  I was mostly trying to avoid eye contact.

Then last night, at our third practice, no one cried.

They seem like good kids though, all with varying degrees of inattention and hyperactivity.  "They keep me young," I like to say, before coming home and Biofreezing my back.

I had no idea there would be so much to do.  You have to draft your team, then contact each parent to let them know whose team their child is on.

I had to (sort of) learn to use GroupMe!  What’s next--TikTok?  Kik?  FriendMaker?  

Then you have to find times to schedule practices when the gym isn't booked.  There are forty teams across all the age groups, and two courts which are only available for practice on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday evenings.  So, the math doesn't really work.

You have to ask what size uniforms each kid needs and what number they want to be.  Then you have to find a place to order the uniforms.

Thankfully, Mrs. Bone did most of this so I could focus on YouTubing “basketball practice drills for kids” and “how to not make a child cry.”

Now I have to message everyone to let them know when and where the next practice is.  That way they can message back their child can't make it because "He already has kickboxing practice that night," or "My mother's in the hospital," or my personal favorite, "We're going trick-or-treating, who would schedule basketball practice for Halloween night?"

Oh, keep your hat on, Betty.

And don't come whining to me when little Billy has three cavities and still hasn't learned what he's supposed to do in the box-and-one defense.

I mean… uh… who's ready to have some fun!  

Yeah!  That's what this team is all about.

(Though I might not hang my hat on that.)

Unspoken lullaby

You cried out for your mama.  I came to check on you since I was still awake on the couch and your mama gets up with you ninety-nine percent of the time.  Lord knows she could use the rest.

You were crying softly as I came into your room.

"What's that on the floor?" you pointed.

It was an AC adapter for the computer, I explained.

"But I want Mama."

"Mama's asleep, buddy."

I knelt on the floor and wrapped my arms around you until I thought you had gotten back to sleep.

Minutes later, you cried out again.  This time you pointed to something in the rocking chair.  It was the laptop.  I assume you must have been having a bad dream.

As I knelt beside you again, I only wished I could take it all away.  As most any parent would, I suppose.  I had nightmares as a kid and can't help but assume that's where yours come from.

My head resting on your back, I listened to you breathe and struggle to get back to sleep.  Your stomach made a noise and I smiled.

You were scared.  Of what, I didn't know.  But I had been there.  Heck, I'm scared now.  Every day.  The news is unwatchable.  Guns.  Hate.  Floods.  Fires.  Wars.  Anger.  Disease.  Death.  The world is a scary place.

In that moment, I was thankful none of those things (hopefully) were on your mind.  Your fear was (hopefully) something irrational.  Not that that made it any better for you.  But at least you're still young enough that I could comfort you, make you feel safe, and (again, hopefully) convince you everything is going to be ok.

I awoke this morning to you lying in our bed next to your mama.  I guess she didn't get as much rest as I had hoped.  But I was thankful she was there to comfort you.  

You were asleep.  You were safe.

Damn all the bad we inherit.

In a southern town

Everything closed on Sunday, 'cept the Shell and one drug store
Never thought you'd miss it then, but you kinda miss it now
You can still hear Daddy sayin', "We better be gettin' home
'Cause they'll be rollin' up the streets when the sun goes down..."
In a southern town

Commodity cheese and butter on the third of every month
Long line at the armory, but there's plenty to go around
Piggly Wiggly, Johnson's Hardware, Elmore's five and ten
It's been decades since their walls have heard a sound
In a southern town

One four-inch February snow would close school for a week
That hill out by the state road was good for sleddin' down
Preachers preached, teachers taught, and we prayed for peace and rain
We believed that the things we sought would someday be found
In a southern town

Rode everywhere in truck beds or pedaling our bikes

Every street, field, and creek, a new adventure to be found
Friday nights in fall meant high school lights and marching bands
You learned to kiss, and cuss, and fish, and make a joyful sound
In a southern town

At lunchtime, Miss Leona sliced hoop cheese and stick bologna
Buy a Moon Pie and a cold drink to wash it all down
We walked home from school, played outside all afternoon
Came home at suppertime, the whole family gathered 'round
In a southern town

We ate iron skillet cornbread at least four nights a week
Got tired of it then but you'd love to have a pan right now
And though it hadn't shown a movie since nineteen sixty-nine
It felt like somebody died when they tore the ol' Star down
In a southern town

Two-finger steering wheel wave to every car you'd pass
If they didn't wave back you knew they's from out of town
Go to the county fair, you'd swear half the county was there
Bingo on the loudspeaker, you can almost hear it now
In a southern town

God was great, God was good, we thanked Him for our daily food
Especially when it was dinner on the grounds
Kids wore out the town square and Winn-Dixie parking lot
On Friday and Saturday nights just driving around
In a southern town

They'd pump your gas and check your oil at Harris Sixty-six
Pass their days to the music of that bell hose sound
Mister Albert would cut hair, five dollars, six days a week
You still grin when you see a barber pole spinnin' around
In a southern town

You remember gettin' a Hardees, a Subway and a Sears
And we were all excited when Walmart came to town
But then Mister Sparks' store had to close, Johnson's hardware, too
And it hit real hard when the paper mill shut down
In a southern town

I'd vow there was more kudzu then, fireflies, and kindness, too
Our old tube TV must have weighed two hundred pounds
You's proud to say you voted but you never said for who
Seemed everyone you knew had been lost but now they's found
In a southern town

Everything closed on Sunday, 'cept the Shell and one drug store
Seemed so inconvenient then, but you kinda miss it now

The S-word

"Daddy, do you know the S-word?"

My heart dropped into my stomach.  He's seven!  They can't be cursing already.  What happened to his wide-eyed wonder questions?  What's the deepest river in the world?  What's the world record for holding your breath?  Where do storks come from?

These I was used to.  These I could ask Siri.  (By the way, the answers are (1) the Congo, (2) 24 minutes and 37 seconds, and (3) no one knows.  Though I do have some doubts about the veracity of that second one.)

Of course, I know the S-word, I thought, but how do you???

"Um, I'm not sure, buddy.  Which S-word are you talking about?"

"I'm not supposed to say it."

"Is it.... stupid?" I ask, lowering my voice even though there is no one else around to hear.

"No, Daddy.  That's the S-T-word."

"Oh, well I'm not sure then, buddy."

"Well then Daddy, do you know the C, D, F, and S-H words?"

That's it, George Carlin Junior!  We're home-schooling you!

As we played a fun little father-son game of Seven Words You Can't Say in Reading Circle, I was able to deduce with 73% confidence that the C-word was crap and the D-word was dumb.  I could tangibly feel my systolic pressure drop below 280.

Then one night as Mrs. B and I were eating dinner and the kids were watching TV in another room, I heard Luke remark, "He just said a bad word!"

"What?" I yelled from the kitchen.

"They said a bad word on TV."

"Which one?"

"The S-H-word!"

Mrs. B and I pondered for a moment before agreeing it must be, "Shhh."  Turns out it was "shut up."  In my defense, and as I pointed out to Luke, that's actually two words.

So at this point, I'm ok.  I figure he's hearing words at school, most likely, or with his sports teams.  Possibly his teachers have pointed out that we shouldn't say some of these words.  He is aware of them, but he knows they are rude.

And then...

He hits me with the N-word.

We were playing football in the backyard, as we are wont to do every single day from August to February.  While attempting to catch him -- a task made more difficult by my increasingly flab-ridden torso -- I reached my arm out indiscriminately.  

And that's when he said it:

"Ow, Daddy! You hit me in my nuts."

.

.

.

To say that caught me off guard would be to say that Bruce Willis was slightly taken aback when he realized he had been dead the whole time in "The Sixth Sense."  (Spoiler alert.)

I know he didn't hear that from me!  But I do my best not to act shocked as I try to determine whether or not this is ok for him to say.  I mean, what else would he call them?   Privates?  The B-word (rhymes with falls)?  My danger?

The kid goes through active shooter drills at school.  Is saying nuts really the symbol of innocence lost?

Besides, when I was in second grade we played this stupid game called "national guard day" every Wednesday.  Guys would go around punching each other down there.  I hated it!  Dreaded it with every fiber of my being.  You walked around all day in the halls guarding your privates.  Yet we did it.  Every week.

So maybe nuts aren't so bad?  Are the prisons filled with people whose dads let them say nuts unabashedly when they were seven?  Surely not!  But what if it's a gateway word?  O, who can know, who can know!

As for the S-word, I believe I have managed to unravel that mystery as well.  

I was playing soccer with Luke and a friend of his, them against me.  After one of my kicks missed the goal, his friend yelled out, "You suck!"  Before I could say anything, Luke immediately responded , "Uh, we don't say that word."  I was so proud!

Now in his friend's defense, this kid is a year older.  Third-grade street cred being what it is, he's probably seen and heard some bad things.

After he yelled the insult a second time, Luke sternly admonished, "That is not a nice thing to say to my Dad!"  This time I backed him up. "Yeah, we don't say that word at our house, ok?"

Reflecting on the afternoon later I had my hardly-epiphanic moment:  Ah, suck!  That must be the S-word.

At least, I freakin' hope it is.

Apologies to any who may have been offended by the strong language of this post, most especially my mother.  Mom, if you're reading this, I'm sorry.  And I will fully expect to receive emancipation papers forthwith.

Oh, and happy national guard day to any who still commemorate the occasion and observe its senseless barbaric traditions.