The man of the hour has taken his final bow

It's a Pearl Jam song tonight (the title of my post). I'm not nearly as embarassed about this one.

It's 1:26 in the morning on the first day of 2007. Ten years ago tonight, my car was stuck in a field and I was hoping my dad wouldn't find out how it got there. The Packers were three weeks away from winning the Super Bowl and Brett Favre had just won his second MVP.

Tonight it's a little different. New Year's Eve was good. Chad and Jada and Davina and I went to eat dinner at a nice resturant. I recorded the Packers' game at home and after we ate we went to a friends' house where we drank and sang kareoke. They had the game on at their house and I watched the end of it over there. I watched as Favre was taken out of the game with under two minutes to go and Donald Driver carried him off the field. I watched the post game interview where Favre teared up and talked about how much the game meant to him. I went home and watched it two more times. I watched the pre-game show and the interview with John Madden and I am starting to understand that this is it. He has done everything but say it. Brett Favre is done. He is leaving.

"The man of the hour has taken his final bow, as the curtains come down, I guess that it's just goodbye for now."

Everybody's changing and I don't feel the same

Pardon me for titling my post using lyrics from a Keane song...I'm a little embarassed that I did that, but that song has been in my head all day and it seems appropriate.

As I mentioned in some previous posts, I teach school. I also coach. I help coach boys and girls' middle school basketball. I love it. I know a little bit about basketball and I like to teach what I know to the kids. I'm comfortable with basketball, I know what to expect and I usually know what to do in certain situations. I also helped coach high school softball my first two years and it was one of the most rewarding decisions I have ever made.

It started as a favor for one of my friends at the school. He was coaching softball and did not have an assistant. I was already committed to the baseball team as an assistant coach for them, but the chance to work with my friend and also have about fifteen less games was enticing. I ran it across the baseball coach and he said no problem, but he thought I was making a mistake and that I wouldn't have as much fun. The first year was great and we made it to the game before the state tournament. We lost 12-5 to a team we should have beaten, one of our players got in a fight and I was ejected. It was a horrible way to end the season. The girls cried, my buddy cried, I cried (and I don't cry). I remember them all sitting in a circle and Jody (my friend and the head coach) talking to them and his sentences and words being broken up by his voice shaking. My wife and I went to eat after the game, but I had no appetite. I didn't want to talk, I just felt like sleeping. I just wanted to go to bed. It felt like someone close to me had died. I can't describe it any other way. That's just how it felt. I had never felt that with basketball to that point. There was so much emotion and when it was over it was heartbreaking. The picture is of our region championship on May 16, 2004.

The next season wasn't nearly as successful. We picked it up towards the end and were only one game short from our previous season. At the end of the season, Jody resigned as coach and I picked up Middle School girls' basketball, so I dropped softball and I didn't think I would regret it. I did. I still do, but I know it won't be the same if I go back. Jody's gone, some of the girls I was closest to are gone and I wouldn't want to try to replace those two years with something that would only fall short.

Tonight, we had dinner with Jody and his family. His wife was saying how it was sad to see how fast her kids were growing. They are only three and two years old, but she said it has gone by so fast. I understood what she was saying. Soon I 'll be saying that. I already know how it feels.

Last night I was lying in bed and I could feel the dampness of an early April night after a game. I could smell the mix of grass with the dew that had settled with the darkness. And I miss it all the time. I miss the cold February practices, I miss hitting balls as high as I could to the outfield, I miss coaching first base, I miss the bus rides to away games, I miss being made fun of by the girls, I miss it all. I miss the way the dirt smelled and I miss the way the air felt when I was driving home in my jeep after a game.

Tomorrow I am eating lunch with two of my former players. They are sophomores in college now. One of them broke her thumb when she was a junior and I used my shirt to stop the bleeding. I helped the other with her senior term paper and rediscovered how much I love Jay Gatsby. I am glad I still keep in touch with them. I hope someday to receive wedding invitations and birth announcements from them. And then maybe I'll feel old. Right now I just miss it.

I see myself in my mirror everyday and it's easy to lose track of time. You get your bearings by watching other people age, not yourself. In about a month, my scale of time will be measured by an infant, then a toddler, then a child, then a pre-teen, then an adolescent and so on. And maybe I'll never feel the same. Everybody's changing and I don't know why.

All for a Tree

For the last few years, Davina and I have driven about thirty minutes outside of Jackson to a Christmas tree farm and picked out our own, live Christmas tree. This year we decided to do it again. Our schedules are pretty packed, so anytime during the week is out and that only leaves Saturday or Sunday. And since Sunday is Favre's day (oh, I mean the Lord's day) we can't do it then. There was only one problem with this past Saturday: Davina had signed us up for birthing classes. That's right: all day, 9-3. In this class, we learned about all the great things that happen to the body while it is pregnant. We even got to see a live birth on tape. And that's something I never, ever, ever, ever want to see again. I had balked at the idea of this class all week, but Davina wanted to go, so we went. Well, about an hour and a half into it, Davina realized it was a waste of time (and money), so we started making our plans for the rest of the afternoon.

We finished the class at three and headed for the Christmas tree farm. We got there about 3:45 and started on our quest for the tree. For some reason, Davina wanted a Virginia pine instead of a White pine. Well, actually the reason was that a Virginia pine would fit in front of our dining room window better than a White pine. I, of course, preferred the White pine. After about twenty minutes of discussing this decision and changing our minds, we decided on the White pine. Basically, we decided on that because I played the card of "since you made me go to birthing class, I get to choose the tree." Now we had to choose which White pine we wanted. The first one I saw, Davina said was way too big for our house. See, this year, we have a new house with 12 foot ceilings, so I wanted to take advantage of the extra height. Anyway, the one I wanted actually was too big (even I could tell that), so we continued on. We found another one and I talked Davina into getting this one. This tree would be perfect.

Me and Davina with the tree that was supposed to be perfect. I didn't actually cut it down myself.

After we paid our $52 for the tree and had someone tie it on the top of the car, we headed home. I proceeded to cut the rope and bring the tree inside. Usually, I have no problem carrying the tree in the house, but when I removed the tree from the top of the car, I realized I had no leverage on this thing. I was swaying and trying to keep my balance until I finally dropped it right in the front yard. I had to get Davina to help me carry it in. It was quite an emasculating experience; you know, having your pregnant wife help you carry something. That being said, we managed to drag it into the house and drop it in the living room. It is at this point I realized how gigantic this tree actually was. It also was at this point, that Davina's mood took a turn for the worse. I run upstairs and get the tree stand and attempt to put it on the trunk of the tree...one problem: it's too small. It's actually way too small. I run to the garage and get a saw and begin "shave" some inches off the width of the trunk. In the process of this "shaving" I cut my left three times with the saw and begin to bleed on the floor and the tree. I wipe my hand on my jeans and, apparently, this is a big deal because Davina then scolds me for wiping my blood on my jeans because blood is hard to get out. I didn't take too kindly to this untimely criticism, so I said a few words back and continued to saw. After 45 more mintues and piles of sawdust in our living room floor, the tree stand still does not fit around the tree. I am now determined to get this damn tree up in our living room, so I head to Lowe's to get a tree stand big enough for the tree. I get to Lowe's and find one...for $55. I buy it because I just don't care anymore. I would've paid $550 for it just so I could get the tree up. I call Davina on my way out of Lowe's to see if she wants me to pick up anything to eat on the way home. I can tell she's not too happy right now, so I just tell her I'm coming straight home. In the meantime, some punk kid honks his horn at me because I didn't recognize the light was green. It was then that I sort of lost it. I pulled onto the road and then turned around and followed him to a parking lot. I pulled up beside him and asked if I knew him...you know, since he honked at me at all. "Oh no, sorry man, I accidentally hit my horn" was his response. Back home now, I get the tree in the stand and stand it up and begin cutting the net off the tree. As I am doing this, branches of the tree are flailing everywhere. They're hitting the walls, they're landing on the dining room table (that was supposed to be not in the way). The tree's so tall that we can't even cut all of the netting off. We had to get a broom and stand in a chair and lift it off. So, there it was in all its glory. It blocked the entire window and stood there like some out of place buffoon. I can't really think of any other way to describe it.

We survived that night, but we still haven't finished decorating it. Believe it or not, it actually looks pretty nice from the road as you're driving toward our house. Hopefully when we're done, I'll have some quality pics on here. It was a good memory for our last Christmas with just us here. I'm sure we'll have many more in the years to come.