You shoot, you score???

When I was in the second or third grade, I decided I wanted to play basketball.  I'm pretty sure one of my friends was going to play and like any good little follower, I was going to play too.  Like most of the other girls on my team, I had never played before but this didn't stop me from joining the team at St. Matthias.  Our first practice was held in the ridiculously small gymnasium that was also being used by a team of teenage girls.  They had half the court and we had the other and our coaches showed us how to make shots by swooping the ball between our legs and where to stand around the key.  At our first game my team only stayed on half the court.  Good thing it was the side of the court we had practiced on, or we would've been completely screwed.  We didn't know that we were supposed to use the whole court and subsequently we lost.  We were trampled.  All it took was that one embarrassing game for us to figure out a pretty frigging important aspect of the game. After each game, my father would take me home and make me watch St. John's college basketball to show me how it was supposed to be done.  That season, all of us little girls learned how to play the game, and probably most importantly, how to lose.  I can assure you, we survived the losing.
Last summer I signed my then three year old daughter up for soccer.  She wanted to play the game her older brother had been playing and I thought it would be a fun activity for her.  And it was, for approximately half an hour.  The remainder of the time was spent crying that she didn't want to run, she wanted to be on her brother's team and that it was too hot.  After about two weeks of cajoling and arguing with her, I stopped taking her.  I was not going to spend my time dragging her around a soccer field only to torture the both of us (and it was really hot).  I also vowed that she would wear the team shirt until she died because it amounted to a hundred dollar tee shirt after I paid the fees for her to be on the team in the first place.  At the end of the season she received a trophy and a certificate.  The girl who played what amounted to one game, got a trophy.  Apparently it's the leagues policy for every kid to receive a trophy regardless of their participation level or proficiency.
This summer, my son is playing baseball.  Machine pitch baseball.  A few summers ago he played tee ball but was bored to tears.  He's seven and a half (about the same age I was when I started playing basketball, mind you) and watching his baseball game is not unlike watching paint dry if you're on a bad acid trip.  Each 'inning' is comprised of every kid on each team getting up to bat.  No one strikes out, no one gets tagged out at base and the inning is over only when each kid has gotten up to bat.  Matter of fact, there are no outs at all.  There were a lot of runs scored, as each inning had about fifteen kids batting, but I couldn't tell you who won because no one was keeping score.  I'm all for slowing down a game for the kids to learn, but shouldn't they learn some of the pretty major parts of the game in the process?  I feel certain that we'll be getting another trophy at the end of this snooze fest of a season.
The troubling thing for me regarding the lack of score keeping, and the trophies given out just for showing up (or not) is that all these kids are learning that there is no competition, there is no winning or losing.  There is just mass movement towards mediocrity that only requires showing your face at a certain place, at a certain time.  I wonder where is the fine tuning of skills, the pride taken in learning how to do something better than others your age, the realization that you really suck at something, and its time to move on?  If we're not careful here, these kids are going to get used to being awarded for producing the least amount possible and getting patted on the back for it with enthusiasm - oh never mind, that's perfect for the adult working world.

This weeks tip: If you have little kids playing sports outdoors, you're going to wind up with some dirty, smelly clothes.  You can use white vinegar to deodorize and help remove stains from their sweaty, grimy gear.  You can remove perspiration stains from clothes by hand washing the item one cup of vinegar and one quart of water.  You can also remove stains from clothes by rubbing the stains with white vinegar and then washing as you regularly would (you can do this with upholstery also).

On the Line

One of my all time favorite smells is clean laundry and, as far as I'm concerned, nothing can beat the smell, or feel of laundry that has dried on the line in the summer sun. The sheets and towels flapping in the breeze, running through a yard with them still damp and catching you on your sun warmed face. The unbelievable softness of undergarments blown dry by the wind; ah, the joy of it all. Whole marketing plans have been based on this very thing. And I got to live it. My whole growing up life my mother had a washing machine, but no dryer. I never knew from dryer sheets; my mother used fabric softener and hung the wash out on a clothesline that went from a hook outside the bedroom window to a hook on the utility pole out back. You might think she (and by she, I mean me) only did this in the spring and summer time, when the weather was warm, but you would be wrong. My mother never let a little thing like mother nature's timetable dictate what to do with her clean laundry (or anything else for that matter).

This wasn't too terrible in the fall when the sun could still really pack a wallop. It was slightly irritating to hang out or pull in during the fall months; sun or no, there was still a chill in the air and my bony (read: pansy ass) hands always got cold fast, and perhaps a little cramped (all right, truth be told I hated hanging out and pulling in the wash regardless of season). Irritating perhaps, but definitely doable.

Winter was a whole different story, nay a different genre. Hanging out the window, practically being blown away by fierce northeastern winds - and no it doesn't matter that we lived on the first floor and about twenty minutes west of the beach- let me assure you that wind is wind people. Frost covered clothespins, their little metal levers barely able to be pried open. The cold, red and wet hands trying futilely to open these little wooden demons. Having to use your teeth to force them open, the inevitable lip splinter, the cursing and the crying; you cannot imagine the physical horrors involved here. Woe was me.

The battle with the clothespins and elements aside, the back breaking work of actually wearing clothing that has been frozen almost made the whole hanging out/pulling in process enjoyable. You have not lived until you have placed a still cold pair of crackling blue jeans on your quivering legs. I can assure you there is no other physical sensation quite like it, and rightly so.

Now don't think that my mother hung laundry in the snow or driving rain, because even she realized these were not weather scenarios to be trifled with. For these particularly bad days she utilized a clothes rack and the radiators scattered around the apartment. The radiator, while actually drying and warming clothes left you with tell tale bumps and humps all over your crispy blue jeans, giving you the appearance of humpbacked legs or goiters if you were a fan of the turtleneck (I learned not to be). It really wasn't so bad, I mean the cold only lasted from November until March; really no time at all. Thinking on it now, I believe my mother may have been the forerunner in character education.

This weeks tip: My mother is the best stain remover I know (yeah, she's got that going for her). When I was really young, I remember her scrubbing stains with brown soap and this worked well most of the time. However, when I got older, my mother discovered Lestoil and there was no turning back. If you can get past the smell, Lestoil will remove any stain you can think of. Mom advises applying a capful to the stain as soon as possible and rub it in a little. Let it sit and then wash the item of clothing in the hottest water it can stand. Additionally, make sure the stain is completely gone before putting your clothes in a dryer as the heat from the dryer can set a stain permanently if it is not gone. Recently one of my family members left chocolate kisses in their pants pocket. I didn't discover this until I washed and then dried an entire load of laundry. The result was a whole bunch of clothes that looked like someone used them as toilet paper. Lestoil was applied and all stains are gone!!