Sleeping With Your Basketball

Dribbling my basketball up Main Street in Thomaston, Maine, heading to the academy yard to shoot around, I had to stop several times to catch my breath, and to yank the towel from my back pocket and wipe the sweat from my face and forehead. No kids around to make up teams, or even one to play HORSE with, but it didn’t stop me. I was, in my mind, the most valuable player on my team of one. Today I would be shirts instead of skins, because my 74 years old belly would scare small children and disapproving adults. Even the squirrels stood up on their haunches, to see what this ballooning blob of bloated blubber was up to on such a hot day. Thinking “no varmint ever called me Porky”, I started with a layup from the left side and it hit the bottom of the rim and came back at me quickly. Still got those cat-like reflexes Porky, I said under my breath, and dropped back a few feet and popped one in from halfway to the foul line. The sound was music to my ears, swish, nothing but net or on this day nothing but chain, either way, there’s a shot of dopamine to my brain that makes me want to do a Fred Astaire (with a dribble in the middle) across the court and do a quick turnaround jumper, swish, another surge of dopamine (also known as the happy hormone or the feel-good hormone). I can go about ten minutes non-stop, but this pesky COPD, blocks my air supply and so, before I get to my panic mode, I stop. This day I was prepared, I had my over one shoulder back pack, and it contained 4 bottles of Poland Springs (what else I’m in Maine), some bug spray, though any “squitos” today would drown or slide right off my Adonis/Buddha body, toothpicks (don’t know why), my cell phone and little notebook, which I use to keep track of how long of what I did and what it was, to be converted to calories lost, when I get home to my laptop and its My Fitness Window, and to jot down thoughts that come to me while doing, well, anything, the idea being to find the perfect alignment of words and phrases that would make me famous someday, hopefully not posthumously, and pushing for the run on sentence record. The best item out of my back pack cost 34.99, a telescoping portable stool, which I’m sitting on now. From previous experience, I know that 10 minutes of constant shooting around, with no stopping, can burn approximately 90 calories, so I make a note. I’m going to try for 60 minutes today, at least that’s what my head says. Taking 2 puffs on my Proventil (Albuterol Sulfate), and grunting while standing, round two, coming up, and I dribble left-handed to the right side of the foul line and quickly hoist up the kind of shot you use as the shot clock runs out, and boink off the front of the rim, and the ball goes, of course, running down the school yard toward Route 1. Ah, a good chance to try my sprinting technique, and makes the best use of this second ten-minute vignette. On the way back to the court, I dribble, and almost send the ball back to the road, trying to do a behind the back move that was so easy, years ago. Seems there was a lot less to go around then.

I reckon I started playing basketball when I was about 12 years old, spurred to playing from a hoop my dad had hung above the garage door, and being amazed at seeing it played by our towns high school and an occasional trip to see the Boston Celtics at Boston Gardens. The timing was late 50’s and the 60’s, Bob Cousy, Tommy Heinsohn and Bill Russell, coached by cigar smoking Red Auerbach, were gods of the hardwood floor game invented by James Naismith at the YMCA in Springfield, MA in the 1890’s, and used actual peach baskets, nailed to opposite ends of the gymnasium. My heroes won an unmatched 8 NBA Championships in a row, from 1959-1966. This was the background that fostered my desire to play the game. 12 was a strange age for a boy, not yet a teen, voice beginning to lose its almost soprano quality and heading for the Irish tenor range but bouncing back and forth, cracking in and out, like our black and white television, when trying to find the perfect spot for a clear picture. Girls were becoming interesting and I remember my feelings were changing from one of tolerance to moments of liking them, though I didn’t know what or why at the time. Often though, the happy hormone and a bunch of his buddies kicked in, when a flip of the hair, or a smile from one of them strayed into my consciousness. I was scared and excited at the same time, and there was only one thing to do, grab my basketball and go shoot some hoops. Entering high school, I was better at basketball and less scared of the opposite sex. It was the 60’s after all, and women wore less clothing than I remembered when I was 5 or 6. Basketball still made me high, and now having a team of other boys/men around, I began to believe there might be something to this boy girl thing, certainly worth exploring. Even as my father’s admonition to sleep with my hands under the covers nagged at me, I would dream of what it would be like to have a warm girl next to me in the sack. Though I liked a lot of girls, one of whom I thought was the one, escaped to a far-off state, and rocked me for a while. The hole she created drove me to my basketball and the lift this gave me, was what I needed while my broken teenage heart tried to mend. The relationship was one that I thought would eventually lead to sex, but it didn’t, so there was that frustration, I feel today it was the deep Catholic upbringing, that always engaged when a moment could have led to it.

Eventually, the summer after high school, it did happen, that led to marriage and children and a life that did not match at all, the direction I thought it would. Though marred by a divorce, and failed attempts at new beginnings, the plusses of fabulous children and grandchildren and great grandchildren, make my heart soar. Moves to Florida and Georgia and back to Massachusetts, I was always able to find a league or group to play basketball. A failed relationship in Georgia, found me dribbling up highway 41, toward the Marietta Civic Center, and the outdoor courts. Then, like today, I was shooting hoops to free my mind of all or any problems, to get back into shape, and toweling my face and forehead off from the heat of the day and excessive humidity.

A friendly voice jolted me back into the moment, and I reached for my towel again. “Are you OK?” she asked and I said yup. She got out of her car and made an attempt at making a basket, not even reaching the hoop. Her name was Jenny, and she said “come over here and sit with me.” So, I grabbed a bottle of warm water and followed her to the new bench, donated to the school by the local Rotary. It was set in front of a beautiful pear tree, which had some blossoms, and best of all it was in the shade, I revel in it. My chat with Jenny was about local stuff, should the 4th of July flags stay up until Labor Day or come down now. I told her my thoughts, keep them up until summer has ended. She asked if I wanted a ride home, and I thanked her and said no, I had 40 more minutes to put in to my body rebuild project. Back to the grind, shoot, run in and do a layup, try some three pointers, stop and start fake out some imaginary defenders, the pussies, drive to hoop, score and then hurry and sit on my stool and puff some more Proventil.

While catching my breath, I think of slimmer days, days when I weighed 145 pounds soaking wet, and able to endure the grueling stop-n-go drills, and side to sides, practiced daily. Going over plays until we could run them in our sleep, and making free throws, “can’t leave until you make 50.” I think, so many people need therapy today, I wonder what would happen if we handed them a basketball instead of pills. The pharmaceutical companies would suffer, but Spaulding, Wilson and Rawlings could put lots of people to work and thrive. I have been so lucky to have been alone enough to find the one mechanism, that works for me. Each time, with my basketball, marks a new beginning of sorts, and this time I’d like to keep it going until, I can easily play for 20 or 30 minutes at a time, or until I’m under 200 pounds or until I’m 90.