Today was the first time this football season that I remembered to wear my Chicago “C-shirt” while the Bears played. I’d like to think that it helps them in some miniscule way.

The first indication that things were not going to go well, and that perhaps my wearing of said C-shirt is useless, came during the Bears’ game. Kyle Orton tossed a perfect spiral to a wide-open Buccaneer defensive lineman, who promptly returned it 45 yards for a touchdown. Bucs, 14-6.

I kept watching and listening as I got ready for my soccer games. The Bears managed to take a 17-14 lead in the third quarter. As I drove to my soccer game, I tuned in to the Bucs’ radio network and listened as the Bears punched in another touchdown in the fourth quarter, pushing their lead to 24-14. Things looked good.

Got to my game. We had only two subs, which was bad news because I get winded pretty quickly. Early in the game, one of their guys shot from the left. The ball rebounded off the keeper, I didn’t shift over fast enough, and they scored on the rebound. My fault—not a good feeling.

We tied it pretty quickly at 1-1. A few minutes later, I assisted on a goal to put us up 2-1. A few minutes after that, I scored almost directly off a corner kick—the goalie wasn’t watching carefully, so I drilled it right at his legs from the corner, and it bounced into the net. We scored one more before the half, and were up 4-1. A goal and an assist, and I felt better.

So, of course, right after halftime, my mark scored. He got the ball, I had him dead to rights, he shot and I didn’t get my foot down fast enough to block it. The ball stayed low and skipped off our goalie. 4-2. My fault again.

One of our girls scored to put us up 6-2 (girl’s goals are two-pointers). Near the end of the game, I got the ball near midfield on the left wing. I beat a guy down the wing, took the ball down the goal line, drew two defenders and the goalie and… slipped the ball to a wide-open teammate in front of a wide-open net. He drilled it in, and we won 7-2. Me: one goal for, two assists for, two goals against. Meh.

Our next game was to start an hour later. At my request, our team captain checked the Bears’ score on his cell phone, and he got this look on his face that said I wasn’t going to like the news. I asked, “Bears blew it, didn’t they?” He nodded. I guessed, “27-24?” He nodded. Just great. That’s back-to-back weeks that the Bears have blown 10-point leads in the second half. They should be 3-0 instead of 1-2. Oh well.

Our second soccer game started late. The other team was good; everyone on their team (except the goalie) had a good first touch and was always looking to pass. They scored early off a header. Again, I should have been in a better position to clear it out.

Midway through the first half, I won a ball in their half of the field, tapped it to a teammate who had a 2-on-1 (“odd-man rush,” for you hockey fans). He drew the defender, then tapped it to one of our girls, who slammed it home. We were up 2-1.

They tied it at half-time, and I spent the first fifteen minutes of the second half on the bench. I finally went in up front, thinking this was my moment. Technically, itwas, but not the kind I had in mind.

A minute or two after I came on, I got the ball wide-open on the left wing. As I received it, a defender came at me, leaving one of my teammates open in the middle. All I had to do was tap it over, and he’d have a 1-on-1 with the goalie. So I… somehow managed to kick the ball into my own ankle. Blown opportunity #1.

Meanwhile, they scored to make it 3-2. A few minutes later, the ball was played long over my head to their right back. He tried to turn with it, and I took the ball, knocking him down. There was only the keeper to beat. He came at me with his legs spread too wide, leaving an empty net behind him, so I megged (v., Eng., deriv. of “nutmegged,” past tense of “to nutmeg.” Slang. To kick a ball between an opponent’s legs.) him. It went through–goal for me, right? Well, no. At just the right moment, the keeper swung his leg back, knocking the ball out for a corner kick. Blown opportunity #2.

I sagged. Maybe I should’ve brought it in closer and cut around him. That should have been in.

Meanwhile, they scored again to make it 4-2. With only a coupla minutes left, my teammate was dribbling along their goal line exactly as I’d done late in the earlier game. He drew the defender, he drew the goalie, leaving me open in front of the net. He tapped it to me, and… I barely tapped the ball. It trickled towards the net, and the goalie easily recovered and picked it up. Blown opportunity #3. We lost, 4-2. If I’d converted those chances, down 4-2 would’ve been up 5-4.

I just sat in my chair and felt like crap for half an hour after the game. I finally got in my car and drove home in silence, stunned at how badly I’d played, angry that I couldn’t even take comfort a Bears’ victory because they’d choked, too. What an awful day.

On the way home, I remembered that I needed to buy meat and bread for lunch. The deli was closed, so I had to buy the pre-packaged stuff at the grocer. I grabbed some bread, some roast beef, and some provolone. I walked past a display with all kinds of cheeses, dips and spreads on it.

I got twenty feet down the aisle, and then I stopped. I felt a surge of hope. I’ll never know why, but  thought, “Maybe I should go back to the cheese display.” No, that’s not quite right. You know how junkies feel about heroin, or how Frodo felt about the Ring? That’s what I felt. The cheese display was calling to me; I was obligated,compelled to go back.

I went back, and there was That Which Had Summoned Me:

That’s right. Bocconcini. Bocconcini, right here in Jacksonville. Bocconcini, which I’d last seen a thousand miles away in a lifetime long past. Bocconcini, incontrovertible proof of God’s existence, and of His merciful love for us all.

Today was a great day.

…

I need a new camera; it didn’t pick up the halo.

2 COMMENTS

1. Doctor Hmnahmna Says:
   And it only costs $13.23/lb? I never knew that manna could be had so cheaply.
   I assume your last encounter was in the Great Holy City of Chicago, spiritual home of the Most Righteous Ditka. I say that your miraculous encounter is a sign from Heaven – the Cubbies will finally win the World Series after 100 years.
   Nah.
   September 22nd, 2008 at 8:18 am
2. Doctor Hmnahmna Says:
   There is no joy in Chi-town, for the mighty Cubbies have struck out.
   At least there’s no joy in the north side. And the south side is hanging on by a thread.
   October 5th, 2008 at 7:36 am

Today I bumped into a young man who took my microeconomics course long ago, back in aught-four. He mentioned that he was studying accounting in college, was trying to become a CPA, and that he was taking a few econ courses. He said he was the only person in his econ class who remembered the concept of “diminishing marginal utility” (as you consume more of a good, each additional unit of the good is less satisfying than the last), and he remembered it specifically from my class.

Now I have proof that at least one student has remembered at least one thing I taught him in high school. It hasn’t all been for naught.

Seriously, though, I was pretty stoked. I raised my arms in jubilation, yelled “I did it!” and would’ve attempted a backflip if I didn’t know how it would’ve turned out.

In one of my education courses, we learned about something Jean Piaget labelled “object permanence”–the understanding that objects don’t cease to exist simply because you can’t see them. The youngest infants haven’t developed this understanding yet; that’s why you can play hide-and-seek with them simply by holding a blanket over your face.

A week or two ago, some of my students were being a little rowdy, so I told them about this concept. I then told them that behavioral psychologists may be wrong when they say that babies develop it in the first few months of life–after all, these students were 15, 16, and 17 years old and they didn’t seem to realize that other people do exist outside their field of vision. They seemed to think I couldn’t hear them simply because they weren’t looking at me. The kids got the point, and got back on task.

Well, this past weekend, I had reason to question whether certain adults have developed object permanence. On Friday, my family arrived in New Jersey to attend my brother’s wedding.* Got to the hotel at 10 at night, had dinner in the hotel restaurant, hung out with family I hadn’t seen in a while, and headed for my room at a quarter to midnight.

I passed two of the hotel’s employees in the hallway. They stood about thirty feet apart, just outside people’s doors, and talking to each other. Loudly. Loudly enough that I probably should have written “shrieking” instead of “talking.” Loudly enough to suggest that they failed to grasp the purpose of a hotel, which is that people pay to sleep in them.

And then it occurred to me that maybe they hadn’t developed our friend “object permanence” yet. What if the employees simply didn’t realize that the guests still existed? After all, the hotel guests were in their rooms, behind locked doors with “Do Not Disturb” signs hanging from the doorknobs.

It’s possible that these employees were simply rude and inconsiderate. But if I’m right, and these adults haven’t developed this cognitive capacity that most infants have before their first birthday, then perhaps I was being insensitive in thinking they should have been terminated immediately.

…

* When I learned that my brother’s wedding would be done barefoot on a New Jersey beach, I joked:

There’ll be all sorts of ungodly medical waste washing ashore from New York. Hopefully they’ll rake the beach a day or two ahead of time, to get the hypodermics out of the sand.

–Me, “These last coupla weeks,” October 9, 2007

Sure enough, the beach was shut down for the three days prior to the wedding due to medical waste washing ashore. However, it wasn’t New York medical waste; it was local.

A former student of mine died in a car wreck Wednesday. Her friends and classmates have already set up an online memorial, and hundreds have paid their respects. I have read several stories of the good things she did and the kind words she had for friends and strangers. I have read dozens of expressions of sadness and condolence. And over and over, they ask, “Why her?”

We try to see how these untimely deaths fit into the big picture. Sometimes the meaning is simple, if tough to swallow: one gives his life to save another’s, or one lives dangerously and his death is a warning to live cautiously, or one commits suicide, reminding us to live happier lives and seek help to do so.

But when it’s somebody as kind, as smart, as good, as well-loved as this young lady, with no glaring flaw for us to learn from, we have a tendency to recoil in utter bafflement at the fact that God took her from us so abruptly. We can’t figure it out so easily.

Well, here’s my shot, in the form of a soccer analogy (though it could just as easily be any sport):

You’re at practice in a 5-on-5 drill. Coach calls your best teammate—the one who leads the team, works the hardest, tackles the hardest, never hangs on to the ball too long, directs the other players, makes sure the other players are talking and working together—off to the side. She gets to rest now, and you’re on the short end of 5-on-4.

You can whine about being a man down, or you can recognize that now it’s time to pick up the slack and become a better player.

…

It’s not a perfect analogy. Our grieving and mourning is certainly not “whining.” There’s not much solace in saying or hearing, “Be better to each other.” But I think that’s the message.

One Comment

Well, I must say I just found your page, and just read this, but…

My mom died when I was very young and I find your analogy quite comforting. I like it.