Still Trying to Land a Kick-Flip

I have resisted, said it would never happen, and swore I would never do it. But, after reading what Amy has blogged, and being hounded at home about when I am going to make my first post, I have decided to give it a shot. So brace yourselves, here we go…!

As I was watching the Indiana/Minnesota basketball game on ESPN tonight, it reminded me of watching basketball games on TV with my parents when I was an early teenager. I was always involved in sports growing up so watching a great night of basketball on ESPN’s “Big Monday” was very enjoyable for me. And if you know my amazing mother, Val, you know she is always up for a good basketball game. This is a woman who has kept March Madness brackets since 1980 and plans her vacation around the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament! I could go on and on about how excited my Mom gets around this time of year but that is an entire blog by itself.

Besides being involved with sports at this time in my life I dabbled in other activities as well, one of them being skateboarding. Now I know my Dad didn’t think much of me skating, and I’m sure he knew then, what I know now about my skating talent….it simply wasn’t good. Oh, I could tic-tac all day long but launching off a quarter or pulling off a kick-flip was not in my array of talent as it was for many of my fellow thrashers. That’s right folks, I was a poser.

But after bringing home a great Mike McGill deck from Skate-a-Way USA (a skate shop in Providence, RI that I found when visiting my brother at college) and numerous other decks, trucks, wheels, Vision Street Wear shirts, an awful haircut and one nasty wipe-out , my wonderful parents supported me. They never told me I wasn’t as good as Pugh or Mitchell. They never told me to give up and stick with more conventional sports.

So as Indiana leads Minnesota as halftime approaches in this game I hope that I have enough patience with Joe & Jack as my Mother & Father did with me and my selection of range of activities growing up. If Joe decides to pick up a skateboard and grow his hair so it covers one side of his face how would I react? If Jack never picks up a Louisville Slugger and instead grabs a microscope, would I be alright with it? I’d like to think so, and once again, because of my parents. I was involved with sports and my brother, Brad, was involved with theater and concentrated on academics. So no matter what will become of these two little wonders that roam this house, no matter what activity they pick up, I know one thing, your Mommy and Daddy will support you. And if they do in fact pick up a board along the way, I hope they learn how to pull off a kick-flip to make their Daddy proud because he was never able to do it. And if they are able accomplish that trick, it will be as if I did as well.