You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy!
Keeping it all in perspective.
This past Saturday, I drove 450 miles from Nashville to Memphis and back to Nashville like a FedEx trucker on NoDoz.
6 hours of driving for approximately 2 hours of soccer. That is maximum effort for minimal results.
My day began before roosters crow. I woke up at 5am and was in the car by 6 am.
I schlepped two 11-year-olds full of crazy kid energy in the back seat of my SUV. Every mile was accuentated by pillow fights and screaming and close quarter wrestling. For 3 straight hours I listened to sound effects on cell phones and who could scream “guess the song i’m singing” the loudest.
The energy was unstoppable, like microwaving super balls covered in adrenaline. Between the onslaught of trucks trying to show me who owns the road, and the constant kicks to the back of my seat, I thought I might come unglued.
But I didn’t come unglued. I just turned up the XM radio and went with the flow. This is a great Saturday, I told myself, as the odometer turned miles more slowly than an octogenarian on a greased treadmill..
When we finally got the to soccer field, half a day had all ready passed and it was only 10 am. It was 90 degrees and the kids were lethargic like hung over sailors.
I needed a nap and a Swedish Massage, instead the kids began warming up and I took a seat on a metal bleacher. Nothing says “ass comfort” like Memphis metal Bleacher.
We played an elite 11-year old Memphis team. They were well rested and ready. They were crisper and faster and more field-aware. Our kids looked tired, as if they had been through hell.
Most of them had.
We lost that game 4 to 3, on a penalty shot, awarded to the Memphis team after one of our defenders inexplicably grabbed the ball out of the air. The kid got a hand ball penalty, while standing in his own goalie box. For those of you uneducated in the ways of soccer; this is the football where hands are not allowed.
Why would you grab the ball with your hands? Because the kid is mentally exhausted, that’s why. He lives in a community that has been torn apart by floods and clean up and total life disruption. In our insane attempt to achieve normalcy, we dragged a bunch of kids 3 and a half hours to a non flood ravaged zone to play a stupid soccer game.
The little defender blew it. There was no excuse. The referee’s whistle was loud and piercing like a tornado siren that had filled so many hours of a Saturday not so many days earlier.
The referee placed the ball on the ground and moved both teams back. Their best player lined up, barely 10 yards from the front of our goal. Our Keeper didn’t have a prayer. Stopping this ball would have been like catching a bullet in your teeth. The Memphis player blasted the ball into the upper right corner of the net.
Ball game.
On the way to Subway, a parent riding with me started to lambast the three boys in the back seat.
“Why did we even come?,” he sniped.
“If you are not going to try, why bother?,” he said.
The boys glazed over like day old syrup.
Most of these kids had flood damage, or knew someone who did. I had spent the previous two Saturdays either sand bagging my garage to prevent the floods from coming in, or helping a friend clean up from a fire-related flood.
4 to 3 on a penalty kick? Who cares!
“Hey leave em alone,” I said firmly to the parent. “They tried hard.”
He looked at me with a sort of shocked disbelief. A kind of “who the hell are you tell me anything” look on his face.
“No they didn’t,” he cut me of.
I felt a twinge of anger. This parent is a good guy. He is passionate, and deeply religious. I know he has lost focus on the importance of this moment in the grand scheme of things.
I keep my voice calm as the kids watch us from the back seat.
“Last Saturday I was wiping soot off my friend’s life,” I say pulling into the Subway Parking lot. “The game’s over. They’ll learn from it. Whatever the score, this is better than pulling the soggy contents of someone’s house out to the front yard.”
The passionate parent paused staring out the window of his own soul.
“You’re right,” he said with a new demeanor.
“Good game,” he said to the boys in the back seat. “Learn from this game and use it for the next one.”
That was constructive I thought to myself.
The moral of his story: Focus on the positives and build from that.
It’s a good lesson for 11-year-old soccer players and flood victims alike.
And that is crazy.