You May Find This Surprising

This story may sound familiar. (Here is last April's account). Or it may make your eyes pop wide with surprise. (Arthur and Chris, playing ball?!)

In my family we often use the "sister-vine," a reliable form of communication that allows one to talk to any one of my sisters and have the information disseminate quickly to nearly all of my family members. This is the efficient evolution that sprang from "telegraph, telephone, or tell-a-woman." Sometimes the details are repeated and eyes are appropriately rolled in the umpteenth telling but they are always shared at least once. This is a good thing. Most families suffer from a failure to communicate because they can't handle the truth.

Coordinating a pickup game with my brother and nephews this past weekend was a little more difficult than just telling a sister but it was definitely worth it. My nephew Chris was about to be deployed (again) as part of our military and I wanted him to have a chance to break in his latest Iconic footwear. When I asked him about joining our traditional game, he said, "I haven't played ball in a really long time, probably years." When pressed to participate, another of my favorite nephews, Arthur, had a similar response, "I used to be good at basketball. Long ago."

I thought these two would add a new, fun element to our standard Walker/Drake smackdowns. And they did. I knew they were in decent shape but truthfully I thought I would be amused… I ended up being impressed. Both of them attacked the rim without fear and provided formidable defense. I truly enjoyed playing with them and would be glad to add them to my team any time. I had told them to bring some $20s and that we could set up a role-playing game after so they could back their money. They were good sports and put up with my nonsense/lies.

Gus and Sam scouted out the church gym at Bogus Basin to make sure there were no events to trump our hope for a game. Soon a text hit my phone: "At church. Looks like there might be a funeral...YOURS! Gus" And so it began. Though the severity of the trash talk was somewhat subdued this time, there were still some good hard fouls and good-natured banter among players.

We divided up and were determined to play until it hurt. Then we played some more. To save on words, here's a short video that Drew shot on his camera and then I grabbed with my phone off of an old TV set (that should explain the old-school quality). It will at least give you the flavor. (And the music may drive you bonkers after the first 20 seconds . . . prepare to mute the sound.)



Truthfully, we made a lot more shots than this video shows (or we would have played for six hours). I will try to get some other clips from Drew that better demonstrate the state of our hardwood skills.

The nearly three-hour sporting contest was once again wrapped up with a trip to Fancy Freeze where a record nine jumbo Boston Shakes (tasty shake on the bottom, sweet sundae on the top) were purchased by Uncle Clair, who demonstrated where he had hair by stepping up to the foul line and representing. Big thanks for the thick shakes, man! This stomach-stretching tradition once again tested Sam whose shake level was inspected several times. While it's never a contest—whoever finishes is a winner!—the seasoned veterans finished first followed promptly by the teenagers. :)

The rest of the evening was spent jawing with family members. There was a steady stream of humanity through Mom slash G-Ma's house . . . she was an awesome hostess slash dishwasher. The Walker Bed and Breakfast (and airport shuttle service) was really popular and let's face it, you can't beat the company or the price!