Songs of Innocence

My Saturday morning started the way my Saturday mornings usually do. I was awoken at about seven o'clock by my two-year-old son calling to me from his room: "Daddy, Daddy, come Daddy!" It's nicer than an alarm clock, but there is no snooze button. I pulled on a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt and went to get him.

My son is always happy when he wakes up. Always. This certainly doesn't come from me. When I opened the door, he smiled and said, "Eat, Daddy?" He's always happy, and he's always hungry.

So we quietly went out to the kitchen where I made some oatmeal, maple and brown sugar. "Yummy Daddy!" Before he finished his first bowl, my four-year-old daughter woke up and wandered out in her usual grouchy mood -- this comes DIRECTLY from me. I made her a bowl of oatmeal as well, and when the two of them were finished I bundled them up against the cold (45° counts as cold in Southern California) and took them to a middle school girls track meet.

Several of my students would be running and jumping and shot putting, so I thought it would be a fun way to spend our morning. When we arrived, we were greeted like heroes. (To be honest, my children were the heroes -- the girls adore them both.)

If you've never been to a lower-level track meet, allow me to paint you a picture. Groups of girls from twenty-two different middle schools, along with any accompanying family members willing to brave the cold of the early morning, filled the stands overlooking the quarter-mile oval, and the action was constant. Athletes from certain schools were resplendent in matching track singlets and running shorts, while others looked ragged in mismatched jerseys and t-shirts. Serious sprinters wore their own track shoes and requested starting blocks, while others scrambled to borrow a teammate's spikes, trying desperately to squeeze into shoes two sizes too small. Still others would take off from a standing start in an old pair of tennis shoes, their feet spinning on the slick track like a dog running on linoleum.

Coaches were easy to spot. They wore baseball caps and sweatsuits, and their thumbs were poised above the starting buttons on their stopwatches. They constantly consulted their clipboards, either to record a recent result or to check who would be running in an upcoming event.

But back to the girls. Many of them had only a vague idea of which race they'd be running in. Rather than focusing on their own event, they instead divided their time between yelling themselves hoarse as a teammate sprinted by and squealing with delight at the picture of a boy in the yearbook someone had brought to pass the time.

What struck me most was the purity of the meet. During one of the two 1600 meter heats, the winning time was somewhere in the neighborhood of five minutes forty-five seconds, and the rest of the field strung out considerably after that. Almost three minutes later, more than thirty seconds after everyone else had finished, the last girl trudged around the far turn and headed into the home stretch. Up in the stands athletes, coaches, and parents from all twenty-two schools started urging her on with the loudest ovation of the day. Energized by our cheering and undaunted by the margin of her defeat, this girl suddenly started sprinting for the finish. Surprized by this burst of energy, the crowd grew even louder and pushed her through to the finish line. As I watched, I found myself wishing that Marion Jones and Kelli White were there, just for a reminder of what it must have been like for them years ago when they were running for the sheer joy of running.

These middle school girls have no substance abuse issues, unless you count nachos and hair gel. They were all there on that cold Saturday morning for two reasons -- they like running, and they like being a part of a team. The same was probably true for Jones and White once upon a time. Somewhere inside there still exists a twelve-year-old girl who liked nothing better than to run like the wind. Before Jones and White can begin to answer to their fans, they need to answer to that little girl.

Comments

[jes]

Hi Hank...came over to check it out because your wife told us to..heehee

Actually, very much liked this post...brought back my own middle school memories of track meets! And as usual, the kids sound adorable.

Oh and did I mention I'm from the East Coast and I'm a Patriots fan? Just thought you'd like to know. Have a good one & bless you for taking care of your sick wife!

[Rick]

i love the new look. especially the banner.