Hoops

While we were in Arlington, the kids were itching to get outside and play basketball. I drove around looking for a free court and we eventually ended up at my old middle school. Williamsburg Middle School is barely recognizable to me now…

“Did you like going to school here?” my daughter asked as we pulled into the parking lot.

“Well…does anybody really like middle school?” I mused.

I remembered that walking down the hallway was like walking through a minefield. I remember having my bra snapped and my butt pinched, and whipping around to a sea of grinning faces. I remember the nightmare of an overgrown, shaggy boy who would nudge me into the lockers with his giant pot belly to belch in my face.

But as I thought about it some more I remembered that it was at middle school that I met friends with whom I am close even now. It was here that I began to act and sing and discovered that there was something other than studying that I could do…

“I guess it wasn’t so bad…,” I concluded. I made new memories by spending the next hour watching my own middle-schooler and her big brothers shoot some hoops.