Youth

Today was my son's birthday party. He actually turned 16 on November the 1^st, but today was the party. He invited six friends with whom he plays soccer. My wife had to work until six so I had to take care of them until then. Man, what a job it turned out to be.

One friend brought over his X-Box, so together they had two X-Boxes hooked up together. This kept them occupied for awhile, but then one of them suggested that they go outside and play football. That would have been a great idea – anything to get them out of the house – but today is was raining. I really did not expect that they would do it, but I guess I forgot what it was like to be young and dumb.

It was about this time that my daughter called to pick her up at school. I rushed over to get her. I found out that I would also have to take her friend home as well. By the time we got home, the boys were gone and they stayed gone until well after dark. I was upstairs on the computer when I heard the door bell ring. I went downstairs and they were. Six boys covered in mud and I mean covered. They looked as if they had rolled around it a mud puddle.

I told them that they could not come in but had to go through the garage. I met them at the inside door and told them to strip all of their clothes into one pile. I then took them – two at a time – upstairs to the two showers. I rushed them through and then took two more, until they were all cleaned. I put all of the clothes into the washer – it would eventually take two washes. The good thing was that most of them used my son's old clothes to play in so they had clean clothes to put back on. The rest sat around, wrapped in towels until their own clothes were clean.

It would be nice to once again have the carefree attitude of youth. It amazes me how as you get older, not only do you change physically but mentally as well. Can you imagine sitting around the office on a slow day and just out of the blue, say, "Let's go out in the rain and mud and play football." You'd probably be out there throwing the football to yourself. Where do we lose it and how do we lose it, because we all had it at one time or another.

I remember playing with my friends and I couldn't understand why the adults didn't want to play. They just wanted to sit and talk. I mean, who wouldn't want to play if you had the chance. Now I'm the adult and I just want to sit and talk. I never thought that I would be here, but here I am.