Basketball

At the age of 14, I bought a $5 basketball from Kmart. I lived just a few blocks from an elementary school, so in the summer of '85, paid many visits to their playground and shot hoops. I usually played on my own. I loved taking long shots, you know, the ones where you have to throw the ball one handed. A year or two later, being busy with high school, I stopped playing.

In the early 90's, my brothers and I spent many a night at Winona's rec center. I played quite a bit there, especially in the wintertime. My brothers were quite good. It was during this time that I started to shoot hoops in a new way. In the past, I would use both hands when taking shots. At the rec center, I began shooting with just my right hand and found that I made quite a few shots that way. So I continued to play as such, even when playing competitively.

In the early 00's (aughts), we bought a basketball hoop which we placed next to the driveway. One afternoon in the summer of '04, I was mowing the front lawn and wanted to get under the basketball hoop. I took two of the four sandbags off the top of the hoop's base and continued mowing. My car was parked in the driveway. I took another bag off not thinking much of it. I had ear plugs on (I always do while mowing). As I mowed, I suddenly heard a loud crash. I had no clue what it could have been. I turned around and saw that the hoop had fell to the ground, landing on our driveway, but not before shattering my front windshield in the process. Oops, my bad. I didn't have too strong a reaction to it. After all, these things happen, no? It cost a few hundred dollars to replace the shield, but, thankfully there was no damage to the car itself. It was funny explaining how it happened to the guy at Abra. Too bad no one was videotaping it. I coulda been on "America's Stupidest Home Videos".

Our little Pomeranian, Zoe, also likes to play b-ball.



In the backyard, we roll a full-size basketball her way and she chases it across the yard. Not only that, but she is sometimes able to push it up onto her nose, if only for a second or two. She's only 10 pounds, but, I tell ya, that girl's got game!