Reflections on youth football, season two

Right after a crushing playoff loss in cold, windy weather, the football coaches of my son’s youth team gathered the kids around for the usual post-game talk.

The season is over now, there’s no getting around it. This is the end.

After 13 weeks of practice six hours a week … after 9 games … after all the team-building that results from good leadership of 25 ten-year-old boys who love football and get along well with each other … here we are now. Done. Over. After all that effort, and all that investment, suddenly, it’s all over.

Some of the coaches got choked up trying to put their intense emotions into words. Just like last year. And listening to them, and watching them, so did I. Just like last year.

And this was a totally different set of coaches from last year.

Two seasons of football, two different sets of coaches, but two identical scenarios at the end of the season: a tough loss, and an emotional message.

Two sets of good people connecting with our young men, doing a wonderful thing for them, and for us. Two sets of dads who throw themselves into coaching with great dedication and desire. with a sincere and earnest wish to teach football to 9- and 10-year-old boys. For nothing. Well, it isn’t really for nothing: the coaches get to spend a little of their own money, and a lot of their own time, energy, and emotion.

Some kids aren’t so lucky, I know, and end up with jerks for coaches, who ruin an entire sport for them forever, but we’ve been lucky enough to go 2-for-2 in the Good Football Coaches category.

The key thin I’ve learned over the last two enjoyable seasons is that football builds bonds like no other sport that I’ve ever seen up close. The investment of time and emotion is so big. SO, so big. And with all that investment comes bonding: boys with other boys, coaches with boys, parents with each other.

It all comes together, slowly, over a period of weeks. At some point, it turns into a team, a real team, where everybody works together for a common goal, without concern about who gets credit.

And it hurts when that finally ends. It hurts a lot. It hurts because you’ve built something real.

There is a very real sense of grief for the end of that bond. Maybe it hurts the adults more than the kids. In fact, I’m pretty sure about that.

And then we drag ourselves back to work, school, or wherever it is we put in our time each day, but we do so as changed people.

We’ve been transformed. Literally, transformed by the power of connecting with other people and working towards a common goal. It’s an amazing and beautiful thing. And I’m pretty sure this is one of the most powerful draws that keeps players coming back to play football, and keeps coaches coming back to coach it, at least in our local youth program.

Football is a great sport outside of all other considerations, but when you add in the teamwork and the life lessons, the character-building, the elevation of team over self, football becomes transcendent.

Someday when I’m old, and Jacob is grown, we’ll talk about the good times we had when he played youth football, and how much we both enjoyed it, and how much we both learned.

Life is mostly about building memories, and it feels good to know you’ve just built another great memory. It feels really, really good.

 

Roman Polanski defenders don’t leave any middle ground

I’ve avoided discussing Roman Polanski’s recent arrest for skipping bail on his 1978 statutory rape charge, but I’ve been watching it from afar. And I really don’t believe some of the public comments some people have made about Polanski, and about his 13-year-old victim.

I’m stunned, frankly. And now we can add one more lunatic to the pile: Gore Vidal.

I like to poke fun at Hollywood and the entertainment industry. It’s easy, and it’s fun, because these ridiculous people bring it on themselves. Despite that, the media refuses to criticize any of them, because the media depends on access to these yahoos for much of its content. They are, quite literally, “off limits”.

But what we’ve seen lately really ought to make some of us sit up and pay more attention to the types of people who produce our television shows, our movies, our books and CDs, and our newspapers. Because if their recent comments defending Polanski’s disgusting crime reflect their true vision of right and wrong, then we need to confront some ugly truths about our star-centric culture.

The list of such people is long, and disturbing. I’m not going to bother digging up links to all of them here and glorify their ridiculous statements.

So the big picture here is that it’s easy to dismiss cultural influence as unimportant, but I think that’s a mistake. A really big mistake.

And if the fact that Gore Vidal is an amoral twit with nothing useful to tell us wasn’t clear before, then it is pretty damn clear now.

But he’s like 145 years old, so who cares? Here’s why it matters: his outlandish, insane comments in this Atlantic interview a couple of weeks ago didn’t cause any kind of public backlash in the media.

This tells us just about everything we need to know, about both the media and Hollywood in general. And what it tells us is not good.

I’ll break it down for them: it’s ok to come out in public and criticize creeps that drug and rape and sodomize 13 year old girls. Really.

Give it a shot sometime.

“Notes left behind”

Wow.

Notes left behind: Six-year-old cancer victim Elena Desserich’s heartbreaking messages of love to her family

These are the heartbreaking notes a six-year-old cancer victim hid for her family to find after she died.

Elena Desserich was diagnosed with inoperable brain cancer when she was just five years old.

During her nine-month struggle with the illness, Elena, from Wyoming, hid hundreds of notes between the pages of books, in cupboards, drawers, bags, and clothes stashed away for the winter.

What a sweet little angel. They’re still finding the notes, more than two years later, and have written a book about it called “Notes Left Behind” as a tribute to Elena and to help little sister Gracie remember her.

“Gracie” … a nickname for “Grace”. Sounds like there is a lot of Grace in the Desserich family.

While the Desserichs were forming their own tribute, Elena was secretly writing notes and tucking them away in nooks and crannies in her house and the houses of relatives.

‘She was a child who was wise beyond her years,’ said Mr Desserich. ‘I hate to think she knew she was dying but I think she did.’

‘I think the notes were her way of telling us that everything would be OK,’ added Mrs Desserich.  ‘It feels like a hug from her every time we find one.’

[...]

‘We don’t ever want to find the last note,’ said Mr Desserich. ‘I hope we keep on finding them for years to come.’

In fact, both parents have saved one unopened note from Elena which they carry with them in their briefcases.

‘It’s our way of saving the last note,’ said Mrs Desserich.

Our sincere condolences to them on their loss.

Please go read the whole thing.

 

“Bolt the doors! The pre-schoolers are here!”

Apparently, some folks in a neighborhood not far from ours are easily distressed.

A group of neighbors near Park Boulevard and Hillside Avenue in Glen Ellyn are all up in arms about … a Montessori preschool in their neighborhood!

Yikes. What’s next? Gangs and drive-by shootings?

The main concern seems to be traffic. OK, so a few more cars come and go at the same times every day. How big can that “problem” get? It’s a Montessori pre-school, in a town with tons of stay-at-home moms. We’re not talking 200 kids here.

Ron Repking and his wife (name not given) own Diamante Montessori Preschool, and they bought a vacant church to house it in 2007. And it’s been a contentious battle ever since, with yard signs, lawsuits, and everything in between. When driving past the area, I’ve noticed the signs, and wondered just what they were all about.

Now I know, and I think it’s pretty lame.

Who knows, maybe some benefits accrue to the neighborhood from having young kids educated there, Montessori-style? Is that possible? Good kharma, and all that?

And even if the answer to that is “no”, and you have to put up with the auditory horrors of children squealing with delight now and again, we think you just might survive it. We really do.

And if you get supremely annoyed by a few extra cars cruising on public streets, to deliver and pick up children to/from a licensed school run by responsible adults, then maybe it’s time to lighten up a tad. Just a teensy bit.

Or, continue to push hard on an issue that no reasonable person sees your way.

Either/Or.

Sweet Home … Carbondale

We took a trip down to visit our oldest boy in college this weekend, after he had moved himself down there on Thursday. I’d been having a bit of a rough time with the move, as I noted Friday: Goodbye is the hardest word.

I feel a lot better now, after taking this trip to see him. We’ve got mental images now, of him in his house, in his neighborhood, on campus, at the rec center. We’ve seen the streets that he rides, and the sidewalks that he walks. So, instead of just being “gone”, he is in a new place that we can picture. It seems to help. Now, it’s less about his absence, and more about his new presence somewhere else.

We left early Saturday, drove 5+ hours, arriving around 12:30 p.m. Lunch, then a grocery run, some errands, rest for a while, then take a cruise around campus. Then in the evening, hang out at his house on his front porch, have a couple beverages, while our kids play XBox in his living room. On the flat panel LCD. A roommate with some cool electronic gear? Priceless!

Pizza around 9, then head off to the hotel so that James could go out and enjoy his last Saturday night before the start of his first semester away at school.

Sunday morning, to Wal-Mart for a bike lock and a couple of SIU items, then drive around campus a little more. Late a.m., pick him up and to the bookstore to buy his books. $550 and 30 minutes later, done. College has gotten expensive, in case you hadn’t heard. Then lunch at Buffalo Wild Wings, back to his house, and time to head back home.

I’m really glad we went. And I’m thankful, too. I’m thankful that he’s so excited about being there. It’s probably more about being on his own, away from home and everything that goes with it, than it is about college itself. But he’s so much more grown up now than he was a year or two ago, and about as ready for college as he’ll probably ever be. So like I’ve mentioned to him once or twice, this is his one big chance to finally take advantage of his abilities and talents, and do some hard work, and get a degree, and use it as a ticket to success in life. I see the degree itself as more important than the major, much of the time, and especially if you are a people person, like he is.

So life is chugging along for us. We were all definitely a little bit sad when it came time to leave Sunday afternoon. After we pulled away, nobody said anything for a few minutes. Jake, our ten-year-old, took it especially hard. But he perked up after a while.

He told me later that listening to “Sweet Home Alabama” on his iPod helped him feel better. Neither of us knew why, exactly. But then, who cares?

And at least for today, we’re all mostly focused on how great an opportunity this is for James, how much he needs this as a young adult whose time has come to move on, and how happy he is to be moving on with his life.

It was a good trip. For all of us. For a whole bunch of reasons.

Goodbye is the hardest word

My oldest son James moved down to Carbondale yesterday to go to college at Southern Illinois University. They are known as the Salukis, but please don’t hold that against them.

It’s been a rough week in all kinds of ways. Last minute preparation, including him finishing painting our house (!), plus packing up the rented truck. Then he hit some horrible weather on the way, featuring a tornado warning. Good times!

But the roughest part is feeling like a major part of our life together is now just … over. It’s done. He’ll be 21 soon, and he has lived at home longer than most kids that end up going off to college, so there is that. But even if he comes back in December for awhile, or next summer for a couple of weeks, it’s never really the same any more. You can’t keep pretending they are still kids just because they live with you.

We can’t go back in time, but sometimes I think it would be nice. I’d go back to the days when he was 4 or 5 years old. We had fun together. I’ve never forgotten that. Neither has he. We bonded really well, and I loved being his Dad, and he knew it. I’m pretty sure he loved having me as his Dad.

As I write through my tears, I don’t know why this bothers me so much. It just does. Maybe I regret missed opportunities, or just worry too much. Maybe I depend on him to give me something in my own life, and maybe I shouldn’t do that. Maybe we’ll all be better off and he’ll be fine. Maybe this will be the best thing that ever happened to him, and I’m over-dramatizing.

I do know this: no matter what happens, I’m going to miss him.

I learned a lot being his Dad. It was challenging plenty of times, and I can’t say I always earned passing grades, either. But whatever it was, it was there, every day, like the Sun rising in the morning. There is immediacy and intimacy about living with people that disappears when they aren’t part of your daily space and time any more.

But he’s all grown up now … more or less … and he’s all moved out. And so that time of our lives is over.

And I grieve for that.

It was quite a ride, featuring laughter, tears, ball games, disappointments, injuries, and arguments, all the things that fit together when you live with your child. O-v-e-r.

Tomorrow we leave, early in the morning, to go see him in his new digs in Carbondale. He is so excited, you can just hear it in his voice every time on the phone. I’m very happy for him, and happy to see him so enthused and primed for his entire “away at college” experience. It’ll be very good for him, in all kinds of ways.

And then Monday, it’s back home, and his room will be just as empty as it is right now.

Maybe someday that won’t sting so much.

Doing LOTS of Harm, in Fact

Remembering:

This month marks a strange anniversary of sorts for me.  It was 2 years ago this month that I was sitting in a chair looking at my unborn baby in 4D.  She was precious!  We had previously found out that our baby had several “markers” for down syndrome and had enlarged kidneys which may have required surgery upon birth.  Thus we were monitored more carefully and had a ton more ultrasound shots at a hospital.  This was the first level 3 ultrasound with this pregnancy (I had had one with my 3rd with no problems).  I got to gaze upon my baby for almost a full hour – it was wonderful!  I was there alone as my husband was out of town.  The specialist doctor called me in after the ultrasound to go over the findings.  The first words out of his mouth to me were “Well you will have to come in tomorrow for your abortion because of how far along you are.”  I was utterly shocked and devastated.  All I could do was mutter “What??????”  He then proceeded to tell me that my baby had more “markers” for down syndrome and it didn’t look good.  I was more shocked that his automatic assumption was that I would abort my baby.  I almost couldn’t comprehend what he was telling me in that office.  All I wanted to do was run as far away from that man as possible.

Click, please, to read the rest.

Penguins of Madagascar Cartoon is Top Notch Entertainment

I don’t write reviews very often, but I just have to let you in on a fabulous secret: this new cartoon “Penguins of Madagascar” on Nickelodeon is fantastic.

Hilarious, clever, with excellent quality animation, it’s all about the silly hijinks that a bunch of zoo animals get into on a regular basis. But as funny as that can be, it isn’t what really makes this cartoon must see TV.

It’s the voices, and the writing, which are both really well-executed and absolutely hilarious. Easily some of the funniest I’ve ever seen in animation, going back to the classic Bugs Bunny and Roadrunner days.

There are some great characters too. My favorite is King Julien, the self-anointed King of the Lemurs. He has some kind of broken English accent and says silly things like “this is how a king is to be rolling” and “stop with the telling me things I don’t want to hear!”.

Another favorite is Skipper, the lead penguin who treats his gang like an elite Special Forces crew. He sounds a little bit like John Wayne (spit this line out staccato with emphasis on the bolded letters): “he thinks he can bribe us with his pinata promises”.

My kids and I quote King Julian and Skipper all the time. Then we all laugh like loons. What could be better than that?

I could go on and on, but that would be wasting your time and mine. Just watch it and see what you think. It’s a big hit around our house. And I would even watch it when the kids aren’t around, it really is that entertaining. Think “Sponge Bob” with less annoying voices and more characters, many of them very funny.

Here is a review in the L.A. Times.

The premiere in March was the most watched show in Nickelodeon history.

When Do We Say “Enough is Enough”?

The number of Chicago Public School students murdered this school year? 35

Alex Arellano, 15 years old, was said to be a quiet kid who stayed away from gangs. He was tortured before he was murdered: beaten with baseball bats, hit by a car, shot in the head, and burned beyond recognition.

Thirty. Five. Children. Murdered. In one school year.

I don’t care how big a school system is, you can’t explain away a statistic like that.

It indicates social breakdown on a mass scale.

People keep trying to address education failures in big cities by treating them as education problems. They are not. They are generally social problems, manifested in many ways, just one of which is poor education performance.

Security is the first requirement in a productive society. Unsurprisingly, kids who have to worry about getting killed while going to school don’t focus all that well.

So, some questions.

Who is really in charge in the city of Chicago? Is it the gangs, or the police?

And can the mayor continue to insist that the problems with crime are caused by legal gun owners? After all, that is the only rational basis for arguments in favor of banning handguns. So why isn’t it working?

I’ll just throw this out there. It isn’t working because it can’t work. It is a fatally flawed idea. It isn’t a matter of not enough money, or not enough laws, or not enough police, or just needing a few tweaks to get the “right” kind of weapons off the streets.

The evidence says that concealed-carry laws reduce crime, while handgun bans increase it; a city that truly wants to be a safer place would opt for policies that work, instead of platitudes that don’t.

Peoples lives depend on these policies. It isn’t a parlor game.

Rediscovering a Long Lost Classic

Eddie and the Hot Rods “Do Anything You Wanna Do”

An anthem for the young. And maybe, the not-so-young.

Derrick Rose is Old School

Basketball fans around the country probably haven’t seen much of Chicago Bulls rookie Derrick Rose yet. And they don’t know what they’re missing.

The first thing you notice is his court sense and basketball IQ.  He thinks “pass first”, like any point guard should, and he sees the floor well, and gets the ball to open teammates, usually with a bullet pass.  He has to be prodded to shoot, although he is taking more shots now, and making them, which forces the defense to start making choices they don’t want to make. 

Then you notice his athleticism.  He can jump.  Real high.  And he has a rare combination of both speed and quickness that make it difficult for most defenders to guard him.  On the break, he often runs faster than every other defender, while dribbling and looking for openings.  But he seems to hide all this well, with an efficient, almost “sleepy” style of play.  He doesn’t waste a single motion, and looks like he isn’t going anywhere, and then, WHOOSH!, he flies by his defender, and the next one, and another one, for a dunk.

Blog Post Announcing a Break. Oops. Break’s Over!

So … I guess I took a week-long break last week. Didn’t really plan it, it just sort of happened.

Not sure why.  Maybe it’s because the news is b-o-r-i-n-g these days.  Oh, so a Democratic president is pushing through $800B worth of pork within 3 weeks of taking office?  And the media thinks this is a great idea?  And yet, polling tells us that the more people read about the “stimulus”, the less they like it?

Wow, sure couldn’t see that coming!

Or maybe it’s because I’ve been spending more time chilling in our living room, listening to my middle son Jacob play his new guitar.  We just bought him an Epiphone Les Paul “Special II”.  It’s amazing what you can get for $169 at Sam Ash these days.  I’ll post a pic later.

Now we just need a decent amp; the cheap 12 watt Kustom is not really cutting it.  He’s going to play at school next week, to audition for a talent show, with his friend Ethan; they’re going to play “Wanted Dead or Alive” by Bon Jovi.  Yes, our house sounds a lot like 1985 radio lately.

I’ve been very impressed with Jacob’s commitment to learning how to play.  He picks it up multiple times per day, and also plays our other guitars.   We have four of them now (2 electric, 2 acoustic).  We should start a string band.

Let’s see, what other reasons do I have for not blogging much?  I haven’t been surfing the ‘net as much either, for some of the same reasons.  And since blogging is primarily reactive, I don’t write as much, either.  Although, I have been writing for The Love of Sports, and had three pieces published lately: a lamentation about The Saga of Chief Illinwek, and a piece about Tiger Woods and his Dad, And the Son Becomes a Father, and a silly list of Top Twelve Fun Facts about the IFAF.  Please, click and read. Here’s my author page.

Plus, blogging is getting boring.  Yet again.   Let’s see, going back to the Spring of ‘03, this has to be, what, the 5th or 6th time I’ve gone through something like that?  Yeeesh.  I don’t know how people do it, day after day, year after year.  It’s like having your brains, and your life, sucked out through a Silly Straw.  In fact, this long 3 day weekend, I hardly touched a computer at all.  Didn’t really miss it, either.  That’ll change, though.

All I can say is, thank God above for Turner Classic Movies.

Oh, and BookTV, where over the weekend, I saw George Friedman, who wrote “America’s Secret War”, talk about his latest book “The Next Hundred Years”.  Which I ordered today, in fact.

All you folks out there who think you know what is going on in the world, because you listen dutifully to NPR or read the Washington Post?  Might want to read Friedman’s “America’s Secret War”.  You may find your world view altered slightly.  I’m just sayin’.

Mad Skillz

Content Warning – Parental Guidance Suggested

Having 3 sons means you are privy to a very special kind of humor in your household.

This Kid is Going Places

Srsly

A six year old boy missed the school bus. So what does he do? He gets the keys to the family car, and drives 10 miles to school.

OK, sure, he went in the ditch a few times, and ended up hitting a light pole, but he’s alright. The police got him to school (after taking him to the hospital) around lunch time.

His mom was asleep during all this. Might want to keep a closer eye on that kid, I’m thinking.

Counting My Blessings

As usual, I don’t count my blessings nearly often enough, so with Christmas upon us, now is a great time to do that. And since I have a website, right here is a great place to do it..

• I’m grateful that … this year I got to see my Uncle Bill for the first time in close to 15 years. He’s the closest thing to a big brother — or any kind of brother — that I ever had, and we have been separated by thousands of miles and other barriers for too long. He’s only 6 years older than I am so the “Uncle” tag is a little misleading.
• I’m grateful that … even though I lost the job I had earlier this year, and don’t see those people much any more, I have yet another good job 20 minutes from home, and I was only out of work for 3 months, so we didn’t really go through any tough times.
• I’m grateful that … my kids are happy and healthy, despite my influence in their lives.
• I’m grateful that … my oldest boy is starting to show signs of maturing into a grown up young man, and none too soon, I might add.
• I’m grateful that … my middle boy is so even-tempered and happy all the time, because he brings joy to me, and my wife, and others too, just by being himself and having fun with life.
• I’m grateful that … my youngest boy is still only 7, and in first grade, so I can pretend I still have young kids at home, before the race from First Grade to Senior Year is over too fast.
• I’m grateful that … my wife puts up with my weird ways, and tries to understand when I’m not in the mood to talk about something, and has faith in me, and in us, that we can work around such things.
• I’m grateful that … I have my health, and can still bike, and run, and swim, and work out at the Y. Lots of people my age can’t, and while there are no guarantees for my own future in that department, I plan on taking advantage of it for a long time.
• I’m grateful that … I’ve come to grips with my own place in the world, my strengths and weaknesses, and am pretty OK with it.
• I’m grateful that … my wife has found the things that make her happy, and let go of some things from the past that were holding her back, and we both see the [positive results of it every day.
• I’m grateful that … my Dad lived until I was 47 years old, and even though we developed some distance over the last few years of his life, his influence on me is lasting and I think of him often (I miss you, Dad!).
• I’m grateful that … my Mom is still alive, and in decent health (although it could be much better), though I wish she didn’t live 900 miles away.
• I’m grateful that … my faith journey has been gently guided by my wife, who is very driven by her own faith journey, even though I find reasons not to be. Maybe someday I can be more like her. I am trying.
• I’m grateful that … I have a blog and can therefore find the outlet for my need to put words on “paper”.
• I’m grateful that … my attitude about life is more positive now because I (try to) have faith that things will work out. And they usually do.
• I’m grateful that … I’ve forgiven myself (mostly) for a huge mistake in judgment I made in my early 20s. Beating yourself up doesn’t undo something you did; it’s important to not just resolve to do better next time, and to learn something from it, but to forgive yourself and allow God to forgive you, too.
• I’m grateful that … I was born in a country guided by the Founding Fathers, who were wise enough to use liberty as the guiding prinicple of the Constitution, which allows nearly unlimited mobility and freedom to be or do anything you want, at your own benefit / peril. Whatever you make of yourself is mostly due to things you did before, and most places in the world aren’t that accomodating.
• I’m grateful that … we have the most powerful and benevolent military ever to occupy this (or any other) planet, and we use it mostly for only the right reasons, and the fact that we have it at all provides untold and under-appreciated levels of security (and therefore freedom and wealth) for everybody who lives in freedom everywhere in the world. Really.
• I’m grateful that … I’ve been able to make a decent living using what God gave me: my brain, and a personality that is just social enough to fit in well enough in nearly every environment and every personal situation I’ve been in.
• I’m grateful that … my life has worked almost exactly the way I wanted it to. Education, marriage, family, kids, just enough prosperity but not too much (I hope).
• I’m grateful that … I woke up today.

If you haven’t counted your blessings lately, now might be a good time.

Merry Christmas and a Healthy and Prosperous New year to all!

Monday Links

Tony Woodlief writes about the value of mystery in the life of a child, and therefore, in all of us.

Shaq O’Neal is approaching 5000 free throws missed, and to put that in perspective, I liked this best:

If Larry Bird were to come out of retirement and miss his next 3,000 free-throw attempts (which would require him to shoot 0 percent for about seven seasons, based on his peak season of 492 free-throw attempts), he’d still have a higher career free-throw percentage than Shaq.

Hah!

Kids Need P.E.

Florida has decided to mandate 30 minutes of continuous physical education for all students K-5.

The stated goal is to fight obesity, and that is an obvious and desirable way to help get there.

But there may be other benefits as well.  The evidence I’ve seen shows that the kids will also learn more, behave better, and generally have a better school experience because of this new policy.  Which means teachers and administrators can spend more time doing their jobs, instead of dealing with the fallout of antsy, hyperactive kids who don’t get a chance to blow off steam during the day.

Hey, maybe now we could work to bring back dodgeball …

Reflections on Youth Football

Investing Your Time, Seeing the Payoff

Yesterday was the end of my son’s football season, and I’m kind of depressed about it.

They lost in the playoffs, in the semifinals – always the most disappointing round to lose in, since you’re one step away from playing in a championship, but the team you just lost to gets to do that instead.

The game itself was a good one, with two excellent teams that do everything well and some things exceptionally well. The other team, as it turned out, was just a little bit better at blocking and tackling, and had probably one or two more highly skilled players than we did. But still, at halftime we were tied 12-12. In the second half, though, their defense started to take over, and was able to disrupt our backfield on nearly every play, causing a few fumbles and lost yardage, and we were never able to overcome that. Then our best running back got hurt, twice, and wasn’t able to return for the last few minutes of the game. Still, our defense refused to give up, and made some big plays, but it wasn’t enough to stop the opponent from scoring two more touchdowns. Final score: 24-12.

Moonrise, Over End of Practice

Last night, as my youngest son’s first flag football practice was ending, the nearly-full moon was rising over the trees. I had to take 3 separate shots, underexposing by a little more each time, to darken the sky enough to see the moon. The sharpness isn’t the best, since I used a 1/15 shutter speed, and the colors are a little off, but all in all, I like the end result.

You might have to maximize your browser to fit it all in (or click on it to open in a new tab/window).

Being Safe is Boring

This is what happens when a nation raises its kids in a bubble where no risk is deemed acceptable.

Why Safe Kids Are Becoming Fat Kids – Philip K. Howard, online.wsj.com, 08-13-2008

[...]

The harmful effects of our national safety obsession ripple outward into society. One in six children in America is obese, and many of them will face a lifetime of chronic illness. According to the Center for Disease Control, this problem would basically cure itself if children engaged in the informal outdoor activities that used to be normal. But how do we lure children off the sofa? One key attraction is risk.

Risk is fun, at least the moderate risks that were common in prior generations. An informal survey of children by the University of Toronto’s Institute of Child Studies found that “merry-go-rounds . . . anecdotally the most hated piece of playground equipment in hospital emergency rooms — topped the list of most desired bits of playground equipment.” Those of us of a certain age can remember sprinting to get the contraption really moving. That was fun. And a lot of exercise.

America unfortunately is going in the opposite direction. There is nothing left in playgrounds that would attract the interest of a child over the age of four. Exercise in schools is carefully programmed, when it exists at all. Some schools have banned tag. Broward County, Fla., banned running at recess. (How else can we guard against a child falling down?) Little Leagues forbid sliding into base. Some towns ban sledding. High diving boards are history, and it’s only a matter of time before all diving boards disappear.

Safety is meaningful only in the context of other benefits and risks. Safety always involves trade-offs — of opportunities, of scarce resources and, especially in the case of children’s play, of learning to manage risk. The question is whether the trade-off makes sense.

Parents:  make the kids get outside and play with other kids.  Risk, adventure, and exploration are good for them, even if somebody occasionally gets hurt.  They’ll live.

And sitting around fiddling with video game controllers isn’t good for them.  And if your school district is one that gets rid of recess, or gym, push them to reinstate it.