Sports Page

I usually don't read the sports page now that I am in my dotage, but Elaine pointed out two stories to me today that were interesting to me.

In one, a nine-year-old boy is quoted as saying: "Motocross is pretty much my life and I want to continue it as long as I can, I just need to keep training..." I commend any young person for wanting to become expert at something. I just hope that motocross really isn't the thing that takes up most of his life, because there is so much more out there in the world than "race, race" or "zoom zoom."

When we lived in the High Ridge development, almost every home contained children. One day, one of the parents bought their child a motor bike. The child loved it. He would get up two hours before school each morning and "zoom, zoom" around the neighborhood until the school bus came. Then, around 3 pm, when he came home from school, he started again, and went until dark. We wondered if we would ever be able to hear properly again. We wondered if the kid ever had time to eat. Well, come to think of it, he was kind of skinny.

Being friendly neighbors, we did not complain. We grinned and bore it. However, some of the other neighbors began to not enjoy the almost constant "zoom zoom" and began to complain. The parents told their son to just "zoom zoom" in their own yard, instead of going through the yards of their neighbors.

Now, other kids in the neighborhood began to bug their parents for motorbikes so they could also "zoom zoom" and many of the parents gave in. The noise became absolutely unbearable, especially on weekends. Protestations to the parents did no good. "These are my kids, and this is a free country and on my prperty they can do whatever they want to."

Unfortunately for these parents, there were some lawyers in the development who were not happy about the noise. They searched the covenants and found a "nuisance" clause and threatened to take the parents to court. (This was after many fruitless calls to police and other organizations about the noise.)

Faced with the possibility of costly litigation, the parents gave in and made the kids stop the bike riding in the neighborhood. (Sometimes I could still hear motorbikes in the distance and I wondered if the parents just took their kids across the street to the next development.)

(Hopefully, the 9-year-old kid that I started talking about lives on a multi-acre farm so his daily practice sessions do not bother his neighbors.)

The other article that Elaine showed me was about a 16-year-old girl who wants to sail alone around the world. Right now, her 17-year-old brother is the youngest person to ever sail around the world alone. I don't know how I missed the story of her brother.

(When I lived in New Bedford, just across the Acushnet River was where Joshua Slocum cast off for his "around the world alone" sail many long years ago. Google his name and read his book about the experience. His voyage was kind of primitive.. no Global Positioning, Radar, or Internet.)

Somehow I can't imagine how a young girl would manage alone on such a voyage (am I being sexist?), but her parents don't seem worried, and are trying to raise the $350,000 that they feel is necessary. What about pirates?

Back to the 9 year old again, when I was 9 years old, I had a lot of interests, as did all of my friends. School, reading comic books, collecting paper for the War Effort, shop-lifting, raising the devil, playing horseshoes, diving for dimes thrown by sailors, sneaking into the movies, riding in go-carts made of orange crates and skate rollers, playing dodge ball, being lowered into sewer drains to retrieve rubber balls, cutting clothes lines, hanging upside down, riding on wobbly bicycles, fixing wobbly bicycles, mowing grass for money, sweeping up a soda shop for money, delivering packages for money, sneaking into the pool at the YMCA, playing basketball, playing baseball, playing football, beating up bullies, getting beaten up by bigger bullies, swimming at the beach, climbing up tall pine trees, playing soldier at house building sites, rolling in the mud, bringing home tadpoles and putting them in the bathtub, feeding the monkeys at the zoo, hitching rides on the backs of trolley cars, traveling overnight with the circus, selling popcorn at the circus, selling popcorn at the ball games, running the ring toss booth at the carnival, delivering newspapers, selling "extras", playing marbles, "tearing down" the circus tent, standing guard over the iron lung at the circus, watching movies at the Salvation Army, playing at the Portuguese fests, playing at the Polish fests, collecting returnable bottles to make money, going to clambakes, going to summer camp, swinging at the playground, going camping, going fishing, etc, etc.

I just hope that the parents of the young boy let him do other things besides motocross... let him be a boy.. life is too full of adventures to have a kid restrict himself to just one interest (and a dangerous one at that).

Regarding the 16 year old.. more power to her. I just hope she has some safeguards in her vessel to ward off bad weather and pirates.

When I was 16, I also had a sailing adventure. I "borrowed" a rowboat and got chased by angry policemen along the shore as I paddled the boat by hand across Clark's Cove in New Bedford. I just made it out of the boat on the other side as the cops were coming around the corner. Luckily for me (and a great lesson) I escaped through back alleys.

I hope my grandchildren are not reading this. They probably think that their "Prepop" has led a quiet and lawful life. Well... yes.. but it was only when I was in my late teen years, after my medula oblongata had finally matured...

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