Ah, my poor parents. It's the end of an era. Today concluded 12 years of watching high school basketball, 18 if you start with 3rd and 4th grade on the eight ft hoops.
Of those 12 years, we had six trips to state; four semi-final games, one 4th, two 3rds, and one championship (which was named the fifth best game in the 25 years since the four classes started having the championships in Casper).
Yesterday, Dad asked Mick, Mother, and I when in our family history we were at our best. We had different answers: camping trips, seven of us around the table at dinner, more recently. Today I pinpointed him near his best as a dad at the state tournament.
He's always been so festive, driving the "Fan Van," program in hand, filling in scores, knowing conference records of every team in our bracket, recognizing guys he played against and their offspring, recognizing the senator at a restaurant before the game, offering encouraging words to teams who've lost, reading the entire paper before we've woken up to know the box scores of every game...
Tonight Mother said basketball's a big part of the fabric of our family. And it is.
The Wheatland boys ended up fourth, losing last night in overtime to the guys who won it all, Lander. Things went badly today in the consolation game, 51-30, Buffalo.
A personal bright spot was running into Katie Bieber, a friend of Jeremy and mine from our high school days. We'd lost touch (she was from 370 miles away), but she's married Charlie's assistant coach's son. She's wonderful, and seeing her again was a real treat!
And finally, the world does not owe me that I be warm, that my lips not be chapped, that I drink fresh squeezed citrus juices, or that I get my back scratched sometimes by two people at once, but tomorrow I'm headed down to Phoenix for a few days to visit Gr. Pat and Bankaw.
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3 comments:
Wow. This made me a bit teary, as did seeing that game reach #5 on the list. I still have a VHS tape made for me, as I could not get to the game. Of course, for me, the best game was when the 1997-98 team beat out Southeast by one point on Curt Cox's free throws to finish third. I still get chills thinking about that.
Enjoy AZ!
i miss you. call peez.
That is a milestone. It seems so amazing how life moves on relentlessly--as we have been pondering for about a year now. Blessing to you all...and now graduation events start revving up!
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