Hoop Dreams

The nice people at Hewlett-Packard gave me a pair of tickets to the opening game for the Oregon State men's basketball team. If you're not from here, you may not know that the OSU coach is the brother-in-law of Barak Obama. Coach Robinson looks like his sister, Michelle Obama, but taller, heavier, mannier.

Anyway, the tix were for the first game, an exhibition game against Southern Oregon. One of those warm-up games where a major university is supposed to crush a smaller (literally) opponent. They're usually a bit boring, but hey! it's a live basketball game, and the seats were awesome -- center court in the first tier.

Oh yeah, I gave the second ticket to Kahlil.

The game went according to plan. I spent some timing thinking how if I could get Coach Robinson to learn my name I'd be two degrees of freedom from the leader of the free world. Gave my son some cogent explanations regarding the difference between a cheerleader and an OSU dancer (miniskirt versus hot pants.) And for balance, I showed him the band: See? You can be cool even without having and baring those awesome abs...just in a geeky band member sort of way.

Kahlil is four. He's inquisitive and talkative, and he likes games so I was interested to see how much of the game would be of interest. With our seats, dunks should look spectacular. And against Souther Oregon, I expected there to be a lot of dunking by OSU players. It started off great -- Kahlil was an enthusiastic clapper. That was pretty much his peak though, basketball-wise. Mostly, he would wait for a quiet moment to say something like: "Daddy, I have to tell you something! If you drink too much Gatorade than you have to spend the rest of your life on the potty!" Think I'm making it up? Ask Michelle Roeser, my co-worker who happened to be sitting right behind us. He also spent significant minutes under my seat playing a game he called 'pop-up toy'. He elbowed the lady sitting in front of me. I guess that was a baller move.

Benny Beaver, the OSU mascott, was a hit. Kahlil was stoked to run up to him and get a high five. It's a terrible picture, but you get the idea. That was the one thing that would keep Kahlil interested in looking at the court -- Where is Benny? Interestingly, Kahlil understands that the mascott isn't a giant, bipedal, speechless beaver. He casually referred to Benny later as a person in a beaver costume. I don't really know what he knows and doesn't know...

I guess the game itself should get a mention. Let's see: 40+ point blow out, maybe a one-third capacity crowd, two new giant TV screens on either end of Gill Arena, ruthless OSU defense that made me feel compassion towards the overmatched Southern Oregon squad, and a blindfolded free throw shooting contest that organizers must now understand is a bad idea.

After the game, it was a sunny, late fall afteroon. Those days are to die for around here. Walking back, the sky is blue, stunning yellow and gold trees, dry crispy maple leaves crunching underfoot. The onset of the Gloom here is heralded by these days that can make a sensible man cry. And this day was spiced up by the buzz of the victorious ball game, flag football games raging on the wide intramural fields, and students all over the place jogging, laughing. It's the kind of day you see on a university catalog.

Next month, not so much. Won't be sunny, the carpet of leaves will be brown and slimy, the trees bare. But I get ahead of myself. It's still early fall, and Kahlil was charged up. Here he is scooping up leaves...

and throwing them at me!

And finally throwing himself amongst the fallen foliage...

See that stick in Kahlil's hand? He picked that up along the way and informed me that it was simultaneously his exhaust port and it was the pump with which he drew 'cold solar energy' from the ground. You don't get 'cold solar energy' (CSE) from being in the sun, but rather from sticking the pump (stick) into the ground near a tree or a bush.

The walk home was continually interrupted by the need to get some CSE to charge up the 'ol batteries. I walked along slowly, and Kahlil would sprint past me, spraying his exhaust at me, then leaping toward the next tree or bush to charge up again.

Eventually, he became a very bold little energy explorer. He has Exxon potential: not much respect for the environment if gets between him and energy.

I guess the CSE is for real. He was charging around like this all the way to the car, all the way home, and all the way to bed. Where he finally ran out of gas, and since I made him leave his CSE pumping stick outside, he passed out.

jay