Soccer

I took my four year old grand daughter to her soccer game this weekend. She lives in an affluent area where the parking lot was crammed full of Lexus, Land Rovers, and expensive pick up trucks. I am happy that my daughter and her husband can afford this area and the costly outfits, shoes, equipment, and bags that children here have to wear to play. Hundreds of children in team colors, numbers, and braces -- the 9-13 year old boy's football teams have their own cheerleaders, including my 12 year old grand daughter.


It is good that the sports are organized so that all can play in organized leagues on organized teams, good for... for the children.


Yet, I found myself wondering if children, when left to their own devices, wouldn't do all that themselves -- minus the team colors. Bill and Bob and Harold and Dick and Jerry and John and Ron did years ago on Harrisonville Avenue in New Boston. We played football and baseball in a vacant lot between two houses, next to Mr. Travis' house. I painfully remember knocking on his door and confessing that I was the one who hit the baseball that broke his window. So, yes things went wrong, but even that had a benefit, to me, and perhaps Mr. Travis who got a new window out of it.


There were no trophies to be handed out (don't get me started on every kid gets a trophy), no patches, no parties, no pictures because it was play, for the sake of play. Boys, working things out when things were questioned -- no rule books, no referees. Seeking fair solutions among themselves.


Yes, it is true, I now sound like the old farts that I knew at the time, men who wanted a return to the ways of yester-year, older men that I tolerated then, but privately thought their arteries were getting harder every week as they sat on the church pew outside Shorty's Barbershop.

Ahheeeem. I do not have a church pew!


Dads and Moms are with their children today as the game wraps up. They are more involved in their children's activities than my generation or my parents were. The fields are not vacant for long as a new batch of older children with different colors replace the younger ones, and it will go this way every hour until 3:00pm.


Back to their house, it is time for me to take the 10 year old to her soccer game. Its exhausting, executing this schedule. I needed a nap in the afternoon.