He Shoots He Scores

I miss my Dad’s voice . . . a distinctive baritone. But I have been able to listen to him as I am getting some recordings together to share with my sister Charlotte (who requested them this past week) and the rest of my siblings as soon as I am able. On Friday as I hit a nice three-point shot from the wing on the court in the Smith Fieldhouse, I thought of this story, in his own words, that I had come across the day before.

“I played Church basketball and softball until I was 57 years old. I never quit until I was in American Falls. We went to All-Church which was the big thing in those days. If you beat everybody in your end of the state, you would go down to All-Church and they put you up in a hotel for a couple of nights, then they had a big All-Church Tournament. They don’t do that now but in those days it was a big thing. I was 27 years old and I remember they had the Smith Fieldhouse that had a floating floor in it. It was one of the first elevated floors with some kind of a support system set in there separate, anyway it was fancy. We went down to All-Church and I was the oldest person on our team from Oakley. And I remember going down and shooting that jumpshot out of the corner, the first shot, and I gave a big jump and kicked that up out of the corner, and it went swoosh. And the great feeling that was to go to BYU and play in All-Church. I’ve got a little trophy about yay big with him shooting a basketball. That was a big deal.”

I love being able to play in the same building where my old man played back in the day. I think he was a big deal.

Sock It to Me!

Every few years I try to organize and edit my closet. And inevitably, in my mostly-failed attempts, I come across a white sock with the number 30 carefully inscribed with a permanent marker on the heel. This find almost always has me howling with laughter.

A long time ago in a subdivision far far away, our friend Jessica, a young BYU student, adopted us and, at some point, practically started living at our house. Once, when she was doing laundry, we noticed that each pair of her otherwise identical white cotton quarter socks were labelled with numbers . . . let’s just say that Jessica was highly organized, maybe even a little obsessive with her things; she enjoyed keeping her world labelled and neat.

Given her personality and our family situation at the time (toddlers do not contribute to consistently tidy homes), we decided it would be hilarious to steal one of her socks. Not a pair . . . just one . . . that way she would retain a reminder of how unpredictable and disorderly life can be at times. We believed this would be beneficial to her regimented lifestyle as she loosened her psyche and moved forward.

So, with a nudge and a wink, my wife and I slipped a sock from the dryer and carefully hid it. (I’m not sure where we put it and, over the years, it has travelled from place to place, surfacing when least expected.)

In 1999 my wife suggested that we create some pictures of interesting places that 30 Sock had travelled to, then we could send the sock and the pictures to Jessica and have a good laugh. Well, I built some photos and then 30 Sock again went missing. Then every few years 30 would reappear. And I would laugh every time.

Now Thirdee Socks has her own facebook page. And, if you are silly (go ahead, take a moment and decide), you are welcome to go and visit the photo gallery.

Travels of 30

Socks are important but friends more so. In the near future, we intend to travel to Florida and deliver Thirdee to her rightful owner. If we can find it.