sports critic with a sharp eye, quick tongue, and backup second career .
AWESOME!
Having really, good eyesight
AWESOME!
Orange slices at halftime
When I was six years old, my math skills suddenly took a steep tumble, so my parents whisked me off to the eye doctor, who twiddled a bunch of knobs and eventually concluded that this L’il Squinter couldn’t see the blackboard. Unfortunately, instead of asking me to drink a glass of carrot juice every morning or just sit closer to the front of the class, he wrote me a prescription for some thick Coke-bottle glasses and sent me on my way.
Being the only kid in first grade who wore glasses was no fun. I was Four Eyes, Dr. Spectacles, and Blindy, all in one recess.
To make matters worse, they didn’t make many glasses frames for kids in those days. At the time, the store had only one pair that fit me—a thick, red plastic set that had to be held around my head with a black elastic band. Yeah, it’s true: Not only was I cursed with Blurry Eyes, but I had a side case of Pin Head too. It was embarrassing arriving at school looking like Steve Urkel , only without the spunk or sassiness.
Anyway, it didn’t take long for those glasses to become the bane of my existence.
I broke them about once a week.
I fell off someone’s back in the school yard, crashed into my sister running around the basement, and got pegged with snowballs on the way home from school. I ran into a fire pole on some old, dangerous playground equipment , stepped on them getting out of bed, and left them sitting on couches and chairs around the house. Once I even broke them two days in a row. And it was the same story every time: I sheepishly appeared at dinner with my busted glasses on my face, thick wads of masking tape holding them together, and sat through dinner until my parents very patiently took me back to the same glasses store later that night to buy the same set of red plastic frames again and again and again.
Now, my most painful memory of busting my specs came during a little league soccer game. Almost everyone I knew played soccer as a kid—getting some exercise by joining historical local franchises such as Chesko’s Produce and A&R Auto Body, Est. 1956 .
It was in my first and only season, in the middle of a big playoff game, when I unceremoniously took a well-booted ball to the middle of my face. My glasses cracked in two. I fell to the ground and started crying, and as the play raced on without a whistle, I slowly got my drippy self together and blindly crawled off the field. I held half my glasses in each hand and wore a big red circle on my face from the ball, like someone had set a frying pan on me, accidentally mistaking my round childlike features for a tightly coiled stove burner .
Well, I got to the sidelines and was met with bad news. Basically, the coach wouldn’t let me off the field . See, the problem was that our team was already short players and if I went off we’d be disqualified. Remember—this was the playoffs here. A free pizza party and a round of root beer floats were on the line. Nobody wanted the game to end.
So—completely blind, tears in my eyes, my bright red well-smacked face on display for all to see, I stood in the corner of the field for the rest of the game, somehow helping our team avoid disqualification as well as victory.
It was tough.
I remember the only thing that got me through that terrible ordeal was my mom coming over and setting up a lawn chair beside me, popping open a really, really old Tupperware container , and giving me all the orange slices I wanted from the halftime stash.
And let me tell you, I loved me some halftime orange slices. They were like sweet liquid energy, filling me with sugar and pep and turbocharging me for the second half.
Now, my showing that day was pathetic and humiliating, I don’t deny that.
AWESOME!
Having really, good eyesight
AWESOME!
Orange slices at halftime
When I was six years old, my math skills suddenly took a steep tumble, so my parents whisked me off to the eye doctor, who twiddled a bunch of knobs and eventually concluded that this L’il Squinter couldn’t see the blackboard. Unfortunately, instead of asking me to drink a glass of carrot juice every morning or just sit closer to the front of the class, he wrote me a prescription for some thick Coke-bottle glasses and sent me on my way.
Being the only kid in first grade who wore glasses was no fun. I was Four Eyes, Dr. Spectacles, and Blindy, all in one recess.
To make matters worse, they didn’t make many glasses frames for kids in those days. At the time, the store had only one pair that fit me—a thick, red plastic set that had to be held around my head with a black elastic band. Yeah, it’s true: Not only was I cursed with Blurry Eyes, but I had a side case of Pin Head too. It was embarrassing arriving at school looking like Steve Urkel , only without the spunk or sassiness.
Anyway, it didn’t take long for those glasses to become the bane of my existence.
I broke them about once a week.
I fell off someone’s back in the school yard, crashed into my sister running around the basement, and got pegged with snowballs on the way home from school. I ran into a fire pole on some old, dangerous playground equipment , stepped on them getting out of bed, and left them sitting on couches and chairs around the house. Once I even broke them two days in a row. And it was the same story every time: I sheepishly appeared at dinner with my busted glasses on my face, thick wads of masking tape holding them together, and sat through dinner until my parents very patiently took me back to the same glasses store later that night to buy the same set of red plastic frames again and again and again.
Now, my most painful memory of busting my specs came during a little league soccer game. Almost everyone I knew played soccer as a kid—getting some exercise by joining historical local franchises such as Chesko’s Produce and A&R Auto Body, Est. 1956 .
It was in my first and only season, in the middle of a big playoff game, when I unceremoniously took a well-booted ball to the middle of my face. My glasses cracked in two. I fell to the ground and started crying, and as the play raced on without a whistle, I slowly got my drippy self together and blindly crawled off the field. I held half my glasses in each hand and wore a big red circle on my face from the ball, like someone had set a frying pan on me, accidentally mistaking my round childlike features for a tightly coiled stove burner .
Well, I got to the sidelines and was met with bad news. Basically, the coach wouldn’t let me off the field . See, the problem was that our team was already short players and if I went off we’d be disqualified. Remember—this was the playoffs here. A free pizza party and a round of root beer floats were on the line. Nobody wanted the game to end.
So—completely blind, tears in my eyes, my bright red well-smacked face on display for all to see, I stood in the corner of the field for the rest of the game, somehow helping our team avoid disqualification as well as victory.
It was tough.
I remember the only thing that got me through that terrible ordeal was my mom coming over and setting up a lawn chair beside me, popping open a really, really old Tupperware container , and giving me all the orange slices I wanted from the halftime stash.
And let me tell you, I loved me some halftime orange slices. They were like sweet liquid energy, filling me with sugar and pep and turbocharging me for the second half.
Now, my showing that day was pathetic and humiliating, I don’t deny that.
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