Bear the Great – Chapter Eighty-Eight.
<Placement TBD. Can adjust numbering.>
Of all the kinesthetic memories of a lifetime, basketball was most enduring. Starting in junior high and ending after age sixty, he’d always played, competively while in school, and pickup games thereafter. Any place they’d ever moved no matter what part of the country, he found an ongoing game at a gym or an outdoor court and joined in with a group of guys – and a few girls – who played for nothing but simple love of the game. Black, white, green or purple, it made no difference, just as long as there was a ball and a hoop. Call your own fouls, and EVERYBODY knows how to keep score.
There was a phenomenon experienced any time he hadn’t played for a while that he came to know as “re-entering his body.” It’s hard to explain to anyone who hasn’t experienced it, but it’s well known to dedicated weight-lifters, chronic distance runners, and tri-athlete addicts who train regularly, then feel the absence any time training stops for more than a couple of days. At the end of a game, muscles seem to vibrate. But beyond peripheral musculature, there’s a pulse of blood-flow to the brain that fairly hums. The notion of living life without that feeling is simply unthinkable. This is what bodies are made for.
He played lunch-hour ball at a downtown YMCA with the same group of guys for 14 years straight, every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday without fail. Before that, he played pickup ball at an outdoor court on the beach every single afternoon after his early AM shift with a group that included some ex-NBA-ers, some NBA-Europe guys home in their off-seasons, and one current NBA ref who just couldn’t get enough hoops to save his soul. In between, he played in rec center leagues, church leagues, and basically anywhere that had a rim tacked up to a wall, either indoors or out. He was an equal-opportunity basketball junkie.
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He started out in the 7th grade not even knowing what a double-dribble was. The coaches had to explain it to him. “You can’t DO THAT, man. When you pick it up, you’re done. Pass or shoot, but you can’t start dribbling again.” He learned to make a layup both left handed and right handed. Shot innumerable foul shots and kept track. Attended a basketball camp at a local college one summer during high school. In an air-conditioned gym? With unlimited food in the dining hall? Watching game film at night before lights out? Are you kidding me? He thought he’d died and gone to heaven.
In the early years he wore white Converse All-Stars before they later became a retro fad. Always wore two pairs of socks to prevent blisters just like Coach Wooden recommended. He hated conditioning drills and running laps, but he’d play one-on-one, two-on-two, three-on-three or five-on-five all day long – and all night too if there were lights. He took salt pills in the summer to cut down on dehydration leg cramps. Sprained ankles? Sure, more than you could count. But he never had a serious knee injury, thank heaven. He’d broken both little fingers so that they each now were crooked a bit like a dog’s hind leg. In the grand scheme of things, finding gloves that fit was a small price to pay.
Since retirement he’d taken up hiking, and while that was something, it wasn’t the same. Maybe the difference was that your pulse rate didn’t get up as high on the trail? Or maybe it was that hiking was a mostly solitary endeavor while hoops took place in the context of an ongoing close-knit community. Hiking did have the advantage of extended periods of silence in the woods, not having to strain to decipher what people around him were saying: Yeah, he had to admit, the chronic hearing loss was getting to be an issue. As his wife and family never ceased to remind him when he asked that they repeat themselves.
But mostly it was that “re-entering your body” sensation. Sitting on a bench after a game having endured the hottest shower possible, pores all the way open, leg muscles still aflame, pulse gradually slowing, brain fairly humming. There was not a high he’d experienced anywhere close to it. He missed that feeling more than words could say.
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Someone once asked him which Olympic sport he’d like to participate in if a genie gave him one free wish, and the first response that came to mind was “basketball.” But the fact was, Dream Team or not, he hated the Olympics with their rampant commercialism and even more rampant nationalism. Not to mention the lie that these fresh-faced youngsters had the world as their oyster. What a crock.
Some of them had a future of substance abuse in store, as Michael Phelps found out. Many of them would experience the trauma of career-ending orthopedic injury. The ones from poorer countries in conflict regions had a whole lot more on their minds at night than what color medal they might take home. A Ukrainian backstroker was more likely to have her hometown bombed by a Russian drone than she was to be DQ’ed for an illegal flip turn by a Russian swim judge.
But the baseline fact of the human condition was that athletic competition as a stand-in for the conflict of nations simply kicked the can a little further down the road for all concerned. Human cooperation, compassion, and empathy were not the main events here. Winning was, and individualism trumped social justice at every single turn. In a country like America that had long since exchanged its collective soul for the Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, the Olympics was for both athletes and spectators alike something akin to a junkie mainlining heroin. The high of the moment was great, yeah, sure. The pagentry of Opening and Closing ceremonies was stirring. But on the longterm horizon stood a hooded figure with a skeleton face. This was his feeling about the whole sordid affair. He just couldn’t shake it.
Most honest of modern Olympic events were ones that mimiced soldiers practicing warfare: Modern Pentathlon (running, swimming, equestrian, shooting, and fencing) in the summer, and Biathlon (cross-country skiing and shooting) in the winter. He’d often thought that cutting out the middle man and having heads of state duel directly with loaded pistols and live ammo at twenty paces would be preferable and more enjoyable to watch than badminton or ping pong. Think of the theater: Putin vs. Biden, reprising Aaron Burr vs. Alexander Hamilton. Or how about this: Putin vs. Trump. Yep, that one would be a win-win for sure no matter who came away with the gold. And the TV ratings? Through the roof.
So, “basketball” was hardly the right answer to the genie’s Olympic query for him. He’d retired from all that a few years back anyways. Much better to be alone in the woods on a clear path, setting a pace that was sustainable, with a heart-rate that was only mildly elevated, ears attuned to the non-judgmental whispering wind. Better for him in the long run, and better for the world-at-large too.
Maintaining one’s own trails was not a function of the charter for the IOC. But it was bedrock gospel for the committed hiker, and he was good with that. If there were an Olympic sport for trail maintenance, he’d be down for it. Something with a set of limb-loppers, a heavy-duty weed-whacker, and a McLeod tool. They could call it “The Modern Triathlon.”
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The funny thing was, although he was fairly coordinated and had developed plenty of basketball moves over the course of 40-some-odd years on the courts, he still couldn’t dance. Right-foot, left-foot, right-knee up for a right hand layup? No problem. Back to the basket, fake left, roll right, fall away jumper? Every bit as natural as breathing in, breathing out. But try to feel the beat of the music while moving legs, arms, hips, and head in something resembling a synchronized rhythm? Forget it. Ain’t never gonna happen. He was like that Willard guy in Footloose who couldn’t dance for the life of him. Or like Elaine in Seinfeld: A hilarious caricature of dancing rather than the real thing. Ah well. There were worse fates.
As he was about to find out….
<To be continued.>