Member-only story
Summer Should Get A Speeding Ticket
It’s going 107 in an 80 zone
I saw the sign yesterday. My first thought was that it meant summer is too fleeting. It certainly feels that way to me every year. I’m all about summer. Fewer clothes, sandals and bare feet, the pool or beach, longer days. Summer always brings me a sense of vacation, even when I work through it. Probably from all the years of school, and then working in a school when my son was growing up.
Long, lazy days stretching out to forever was how it seemed then. Yes, keeping him entertained was a challenge. Meeting that challenge took us to the Michael Jordan basketball camp in Santa Barbara, California for five years, when he was ages 12 to 17, to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico for three years, from ages 7 to 9, and to Santa Fe, New Mexico nearly every year.
Each place brought it’s own joys for each of us. At the basketball camps, he made life-long friends, met several NBA greats who gave inspiring talks, and learned the fundamentals of the game. One speech by Mark Jackson spoke directly to my son’s issues with coaches. Both he and my son had been told they were too slow to play basketball. My son believed it until he heard Jackson speak. It led to him playing high school and college ball, and that’s a story all it’s own.
