The Basketball Shoes

Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.

Robert Frost

One thing I never anticipated from my rowdy sons was tenderness, but it pops up in the most unexpected moments.

Son #5 is still my most adventurous child. He’s not afraid of much. In fact, after high school his plan was to go to stuntman school—he even found one not too far away. But his wife insisted he get real job, so that lofty ambition was squelched early on.

We had ample warning. Before he was one year old, he was crawling across the floor one afternoon and bit through an electric cord. It burned both sides of his mouth and threw him about six feet across the room. My mother was babysitting him at the time and was traumatized by the incident for years. On the other hand, he was quite happy by the next day.

Then when he was three, he standing on the couch peering out the living room window to the sidewalk below our split-entry home.  ”How far is it down there, Mom?”

“Oh, six or eight feet I’d guess.” As soon as I headed back to the kitchen, he pushed out the screen and jumped. Fortunately, there was a hedge of evergreens below, so he didn’t hit the concrete head on.

Learning to ride a bike was the same story. If the big kids could do it, so could he. He’d push our little two-wheeler to the top of an incline at the head of the street, climb on, and feet flying, he’d roll down the hill, gathering speed as he went. Balance was not a problem. Braking was. He’d hit the curb, fly over the handlebars, and collide with the lawn. It probably took 10 or 15 times before he figured out how to use the pedals to stop. He was four.

Years later, like his siblings, he was tall, so he was recruited by high school coaches of a couple of sports. My favorite was the year he played water polo. He was the shallow-end goalie—an excellent choice because he couldn’t swim! But he only gave up one goal the whole season, so there’s that.

Of course, playing basketball was a given—and he was seriously competitive. That’s why I was bemused the first time I saw him motion to the coach to take him off the floor. Turns out that he knew his temper was about to get control of him, so he chose the bench over the possibility of a foul which might give the other team an advantage at the free-throw line. That happened every couple of games.

Though he didn’t care particularly about his wardrobe, he loved a fine pair of basketball shoes. A job at in the men’s section of a local department store allowed him to indulge in a top-of-the-line pair for which he was the envy of his brothers. Those shoes were “game” shoes. At early morning practice all summer, they never came out of the box. His old Nikes were good enough for that.

During the season opener, I was shocked to see Son #5 wearing those worn Nikes. “What happened to the new shoes?” I asked.

“Oh? Well,” he said off-offhandedly when I had a chance to ask at halftime, “see that new kid on the bench?” He pointed to a sophomore who lived down the street from us. “He’s pretty excited he made the team. His family has a bunch of kids—even more than ours. His shoes were pretty much trashed.  I gave him mine.” Then he went back to practice shooting three-pointers till the buzzer started the next half.

Boys. They turn human when you least expect it.