Moving to Riverview was the end of playing football or a massive hide & go seek game on the block. Riverview was the beginning of solitude...solitude that would have made a monk envious!
There was hardly any kids in the neighborhood...and the ones I did find (rather, my mother found) were the kids who took a bat to our mailbox when we first moved in. After one day of watching them play "skate or die" while listening to some death metal, I had had enough! So I entered into "hermitville." I had to invent games...I had to imagine things...I had to be really creative...and sometimes destructive (b/c certain things in the house weren't meant to be basketball hoops).
Private school was sort of cool...in the sense that my life wasn't being threatened because I had the baddest bike...but the kids were certainly not "cool." My fellow peers and I had come from two opposite ends of the world...I mean Tampa...but being around these type of kids prepared me for college and my professional career.
My saving grace was this small basketball court my step-father made. He had a cement truck come to the back yard and dump a whole heap of concrete...he smoothed it out...we put a hoop up...and waited. Michael Jordan was the thing...and I could hold my own in b-ball....plus two years of organized football was taking a toll. Trust me, I was bad...super fast...I went games without getting tackled (it was either touchdown or out-of-bounds). But two years was enough...I had so many bruises on my arm, I'm surprised no one called Child Protective Services! Anyway, the hoop was my saving grace...my church...my sanctuary...my meditation from extreme boredom.
Tampa from Raymond James Stadium - 2007...Jags won this game...spoiled my b-day?
The house in Riverview...
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment