Baby Basketball

One of the best parts of visiting home is talking about the ridiculous things that happened while I was growing up.  Today I actually learned something new about how I reacted when my dad asked me about playing basketball.

Just for some background, I am very accident prone.  However, I come by it honestly.  When I was younger, my dad managed to get a substantial cut on one of his fingers during a game.  We had to go to the hospital so that he could get stitches.  When he finally got back to basketball, I was thrilled.  Not because I had any particular love of basketball, but because basketball days were the only time that I got money from my mom to buy a soda from the magical soda machine that had strawberry punch soda.  To this day, I cannot figure out what on earth that soda was, but it's the only machine I can remember seeing that had those little red and pink cans.

I had just put in my two quarters (does anyone else remember when a vending machine soda only cost 50 cents?) and was gleefully preparing to open the can when my mother came dashing out of the gym. She told me to quickly grab my things because we had to take Dad back to the hospital for more stitches. At this point I rolled my eyes at her and said, "But he already had stitches last time!"

Despite my irritation, we once more appeared at the hospital for stitches.  My dad jokes that his medical file would probably be about 6 inches thick with just a list of his sports-related injuries.  Looking back on it, I'm not entirely certain that the medical staff didn't recognize him on sight.

When I finally became old enough to play in a basketball league, my dad was very excited. I was fast from playing soccer and I was scrappy because I was always one of the smallest girls on the team.  He had also had me practice jumps so that I'd be extra-prepared for that wonderful day when I would step out onto the basketball court.

He asked me, "Well, honey, what would you say to playing basketball? You're old enough to join a team now." His grin was cheshire-like in its delight.

I looked at him skeptically.  "No, I don't really want to play."

Shocked, he responded with, "Why not? Do you not like basketball?"

Precocious daughter that I was, I told him very matter-of-factly that, "No, I like basketball just fine.  I just don't like hospitals."

Eventually my dad convinced me to play basketball and I never had to go to the hospital because of a basketball-related injury.  However, I think that this is one of his most humorous basketball memories of me.