Back With a Vengeance

I hope you all had a great weekend wherever you are.

We are back home and if all goes as expected, we will be making our escape from yet another record-breaking heat wave in the Valley by late July.

I have been shopping online and am glad to see the housing market in Ohio is not as crazy (crazy in a good way for sellers) as it is here.

Our visit up to Prescott was way cool and here are some pics we took:

You know who else is back with a vengeance?

The red-hot Phoenix Suns.

Granted, they are playing a Clippers team without one of their superstars, but you know what?

Boo fucking hoo.

Everybody has the same amount of games to play and everybody has injuries, and everybody can KISS MY ASS! The Suns are playing the best defense of any NBA playoff team and they will go to the final buzzer of the series with their discipline and crazy-good Devin Booker filling it up.

I am not declaring this season over by any means, but when are the writers going to start with the “aging superstars” stories and “the end of superteams” bullshit?

The bottom line is that the Suns, just might be playing together as a team way better than the Clippers are, at least in Game 1.

I was in fifth grade in Bossier City, Louisiana and I had lost my two front teeth in a playground tackling incident. I made the basketball team as a low-jumping forward and we played in a league against other elementary schools.

Back to the tackling “incident.”

The elementary school I attended had a huge fenced in playground for recesses and lunches. The game we played went like this: about 30 boys would gather in the yard and someone started the game by throwing the football in a crowd. The way you played the game was, you caught the ball, and you ran for your life until you were tackled, usually by four or five over-eager students.

The ball was in the air, and…..

I lept and caught the pigskin, bolting for the largest part of the playground, trailed by my bloodthirsty peers. Just as I was trying to jump over a tackler, he jerked his head back, causing me to hit my two permanent front teeth on the back of another kid’s head.

Teeth out.

Blood everywhere.

I was out for 8 weeks to allow my new bridge to set, so I couldn’t play on the basketball team.

After pleading and promising the moon, I was able to get my doctor to sign off for me so I would be able to participate in the Holiday Invitational Tournament, a really big deal held at the local powerhouse high school gymnasium.

A really big deal.

We had to break into our own school locker rooms to try and find me a uniform, and I was barely able to make it to the gym for the tip-off of the game.

My parents were there. My brother and sister, my friends, all my schoolmates.

A really big deal.

I rub my sweaty hands together, crouch down, and the official tosses the ball in the air.

One of our opponents caught the ball and sprinted down the court for a fast break, obviously trying for an opening layup.

I was confused.

I thought for a second he was trying to score at our basket, so when he tried to fake me out, I timed my jump and grabbed the ball out of midair.

I sprint down the court, dribbling the basketball for a layup of my own.

The crowd is loud and my own players were frantically shouting at me.

Why?

Because their dumbass player was indeed shooting at my team’s goal, and when I sprinted the length of the court to score, I was shooting at their team’s goal.

No wonder the crowd was going wild.

Good thing I missed.

Check out this oldie:

Stay well.