Big Red
So, Covid-19 Day 12...I hope this finds you and your loved ones doing well. Just found out that one of my good buddies has tested positive for Covid-19. He had the typical symptoms, fever, sore throat and dry cough, but other then that nothing too serious so let's pray that is all. He and his family are now in quarantine for the next 14 days so hopefully the rest of his family comes out fine as well. Thoughts and prayers being sent their way.
Please make sure you are taking care of yourself out there and please make sure that you are following the guidelines that are being put out by your local government and the health organizations. They are doing what is best for us all. The inconveniences that we are having to go through right now will hopefully get us back to our normal way of life sooner. In closing, just smarten up and do your part damn it!
Okay, on to some happier news...I had a post just about finished and ready to go when I got news of a different sort. My post for today was originally going to talk about all the great sports action that was on tele from this past weekend (I mean it was all previously recorded stuff, but still pretty good), but all that got thrown out the window quickly when I found out that my brother (not by blood but close enough) is being inducted into The Hall of Fall at our alma mater. I could not be more ecstatic! I have so many stories that I could probably write a book, but not sure of how many people outside of our families who would actually read it (on top of that, not sure we want our kids to hear ALL our stories 🤨). Luckily I have started a blog that doesn't cost any money to publish so I can write a few memories here.
There are a couple different definitions from Webster for brother and although most of them could apply, I think the main definition of brother is that one that I will always consider him and his (actual)brothers. That one talks about a male that shares the same parents as another. No, we don't have the same parents, but I really don't remember life without his family around and I love his parents as if they were my own. I spent MANY days at their apartment in town, or their camp (which became their house) out at the lake and we were involved with each other's summers until we headed off to college. Even since then we have managed to be involved in each other's lives without even trying. To no one's surprise, least of all ours, his son was born on the same day as my daughter roughly 12 hours apart...his son near the 5am hour and my daughter near the 5pm hour. There are other things that have come up throughout the years where you realize that, yup, you will always be involved with each other. We may not talk every day, or even every month, but when we do, it is like we just pick up the conversation where we left it off.
Our fathers played men's softball together every summer when we were younger so we traveled all over with those teams and of course as a youngster, you didn't always watch the games, but you had a lot of fun playing while the 'big boys' played softball. It was definitely a different era, and yes, we may have been left to ourselves while the games were going on. Especially if it was a trip where neither one of our mom's had come. Don't get me wrong, in the world we live in now, neither one of our fathers would have let us just take off, but I think a combination of where we lived, the time we lived in, and the fact that we were together was what gave our fathers the ability to let us run around without any worries. We were all over the place, through the playground, up on the other fields, sometimes out in the woods if the field was near the woods...Man, the more I start to write these things down, the more I think maybe I need to keep my mouth shut.😂 If our mothers ever read this, our dads would be sleeping on their respective couches more than normal!!
Basketball was our sport. We tried to play it all the time. Don't get me wrong, we played other sports too, but hoops is what we loved. His parents owned an apartment building in town and we used to play ball on a paved little hoop area down back. It was a great little area for pick up, but the worst part of this was that you couldn't let the ball roll into the yard across the street. I don't remember who lived their, but just think of the home run in 'The Sandlot'.. I will say though, I do think that this helped our speed and maybe our soccer skills a little. We did everything we could to make sure that it didn't roll into the yard, including running it down and kicking it around the corner. From what I can remember, this might be the first place where I started playing pick up ball...And it might be the origination of where my buddy and me started the bullying of our brothers. It's not the bullying that you are thinking of, maybe a better phrase would be the stacking of our team.😁
My buddy has 2 younger brothers, and I have a younger brother (and younger sister but she was playing with Barbies) so whenever we played anything, it was usually the oldest against the youngest. Now that I look back on it, I think that our brothers owe us some thanks for making them the athletes they were and giving them the toughness that they possess. I mean, we pushed them and beat them up(not with punches) and made it so eventually the games ALWAYS ended because they got pissed off at us. Our bad.
One summer, my parents bought the camp right next to their house and those few summers,we spent almost every day together. We swam, we rode boat, we drove down the back roads (of course we had our license) to his grandparents' camp or the beach, we cooked out, his dad showed my brother how to make fires bigger with lighter fluid, we played ball in their driveway, and we had some epic wiffle ball games.
Their house and our camp were separated by some good size trees and a little stream, so our dads cut a little path between the two and made a little bridge across (It was pretty cool, you had a secret path to your buddies' house.) The best part about the trees though, they made an organic "Green Monster" for our wiffle ball games. Granted none of us were Red Sox fans, but I mean what other name could you use for a wall of green (maybe pines?) trees. We had a lot of fun with these games, we used everything and anything for a base, it could be a frisbee, it could be a hat, heck I think we used a tree for 3rd base. Just thinking about those times always puts a smile on my face.
We had a lot of fun growing up. Today, when I heard the news, all of these stories came back to me in an instant and put a huge smile on my face. I could not be happier for my brother and his family. Not only has he been a great brother to me, he is a great man. He and his wife have raised 3 amazing kids and even though his kids didn't get to see him play like I did, they have had the opportunity to have him as a coach at one time or another and they have all become some great athletes in their own right. I am proud to call him my brother and hopefully I can celebrate with him in person come September. I love you big man.
Thanks for allowing me to share a little of our past. Not a whole lot of stories or substance there, but it felt great to reminisce. I could easily fill a lot of pages with what I could say, but, that's enough rambling for now.
Take care my friends and please remember, Be Good to Yourselves and Be Good to Each Other.
-E
Please make sure you are taking care of yourself out there and please make sure that you are following the guidelines that are being put out by your local government and the health organizations. They are doing what is best for us all. The inconveniences that we are having to go through right now will hopefully get us back to our normal way of life sooner. In closing, just smarten up and do your part damn it!
Okay, on to some happier news...I had a post just about finished and ready to go when I got news of a different sort. My post for today was originally going to talk about all the great sports action that was on tele from this past weekend (I mean it was all previously recorded stuff, but still pretty good), but all that got thrown out the window quickly when I found out that my brother (not by blood but close enough) is being inducted into The Hall of Fall at our alma mater. I could not be more ecstatic! I have so many stories that I could probably write a book, but not sure of how many people outside of our families who would actually read it (on top of that, not sure we want our kids to hear ALL our stories 🤨). Luckily I have started a blog that doesn't cost any money to publish so I can write a few memories here.
There are a couple different definitions from Webster for brother and although most of them could apply, I think the main definition of brother is that one that I will always consider him and his (actual)brothers. That one talks about a male that shares the same parents as another. No, we don't have the same parents, but I really don't remember life without his family around and I love his parents as if they were my own. I spent MANY days at their apartment in town, or their camp (which became their house) out at the lake and we were involved with each other's summers until we headed off to college. Even since then we have managed to be involved in each other's lives without even trying. To no one's surprise, least of all ours, his son was born on the same day as my daughter roughly 12 hours apart...his son near the 5am hour and my daughter near the 5pm hour. There are other things that have come up throughout the years where you realize that, yup, you will always be involved with each other. We may not talk every day, or even every month, but when we do, it is like we just pick up the conversation where we left it off.
Our fathers played men's softball together every summer when we were younger so we traveled all over with those teams and of course as a youngster, you didn't always watch the games, but you had a lot of fun playing while the 'big boys' played softball. It was definitely a different era, and yes, we may have been left to ourselves while the games were going on. Especially if it was a trip where neither one of our mom's had come. Don't get me wrong, in the world we live in now, neither one of our fathers would have let us just take off, but I think a combination of where we lived, the time we lived in, and the fact that we were together was what gave our fathers the ability to let us run around without any worries. We were all over the place, through the playground, up on the other fields, sometimes out in the woods if the field was near the woods...Man, the more I start to write these things down, the more I think maybe I need to keep my mouth shut.😂 If our mothers ever read this, our dads would be sleeping on their respective couches more than normal!!
Basketball was our sport. We tried to play it all the time. Don't get me wrong, we played other sports too, but hoops is what we loved. His parents owned an apartment building in town and we used to play ball on a paved little hoop area down back. It was a great little area for pick up, but the worst part of this was that you couldn't let the ball roll into the yard across the street. I don't remember who lived their, but just think of the home run in 'The Sandlot'.. I will say though, I do think that this helped our speed and maybe our soccer skills a little. We did everything we could to make sure that it didn't roll into the yard, including running it down and kicking it around the corner. From what I can remember, this might be the first place where I started playing pick up ball...And it might be the origination of where my buddy and me started the bullying of our brothers. It's not the bullying that you are thinking of, maybe a better phrase would be the stacking of our team.😁
My buddy has 2 younger brothers, and I have a younger brother (and younger sister but she was playing with Barbies) so whenever we played anything, it was usually the oldest against the youngest. Now that I look back on it, I think that our brothers owe us some thanks for making them the athletes they were and giving them the toughness that they possess. I mean, we pushed them and beat them up(not with punches) and made it so eventually the games ALWAYS ended because they got pissed off at us. Our bad.
One summer, my parents bought the camp right next to their house and those few summers,we spent almost every day together. We swam, we rode boat, we drove down the back roads (of course we had our license) to his grandparents' camp or the beach, we cooked out, his dad showed my brother how to make fires bigger with lighter fluid, we played ball in their driveway, and we had some epic wiffle ball games.
Their house and our camp were separated by some good size trees and a little stream, so our dads cut a little path between the two and made a little bridge across (It was pretty cool, you had a secret path to your buddies' house.) The best part about the trees though, they made an organic "Green Monster" for our wiffle ball games. Granted none of us were Red Sox fans, but I mean what other name could you use for a wall of green (maybe pines?) trees. We had a lot of fun with these games, we used everything and anything for a base, it could be a frisbee, it could be a hat, heck I think we used a tree for 3rd base. Just thinking about those times always puts a smile on my face.
We had a lot of fun growing up. Today, when I heard the news, all of these stories came back to me in an instant and put a huge smile on my face. I could not be happier for my brother and his family. Not only has he been a great brother to me, he is a great man. He and his wife have raised 3 amazing kids and even though his kids didn't get to see him play like I did, they have had the opportunity to have him as a coach at one time or another and they have all become some great athletes in their own right. I am proud to call him my brother and hopefully I can celebrate with him in person come September. I love you big man.
Thanks for allowing me to share a little of our past. Not a whole lot of stories or substance there, but it felt great to reminisce. I could easily fill a lot of pages with what I could say, but, that's enough rambling for now.
Take care my friends and please remember, Be Good to Yourselves and Be Good to Each Other.
-E
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