- December 25, 2024
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The elderly lady sitting to my right on U.S. Airways Flight 878 to Washington, D.C., thought my parents should be proud. I think her name was Mary Lou.
That’s right, I missed all of last weekend’s spring football games — instead using the long weekend to visit my family and friends for the first time since I arrived in the Sunshine State two months ago. I was bummed to miss out on what would’ve been my first gridiron action since November, but family and friends are tops for me, so no apologies.
Mary Lou and I didn’t waste much time with small talk. She and her husband (who was unluckily seated one row up and across the aisle) were originally from Flint, Michigan. He was a homicide detective there. She was quick to add, in a whisper, that during her husband’s tenure, Flint had the highest homicide rate in the nation.
As the nightscape of North Carolina gave way to a smattering of lights dotting southwest Virginia, I quickly shifted the conversation to University of Michigan football, to Bo Schembechler, Lloyd Carr, and (current Michigan president) Mary Sue Coleman. As I write this, I realize that the chance my new friend’s name actually having been Mary Lou is about as realistic as the Jaguars winning the Super Bowl.
She tossed out a few names of her own: gridiron greats Mark Harmon and Gerald Ford. Even at 30,000 feet, I couldn’t escape sports banter.
At home, I pitched with my dad off the backyard mound we built together when I was 12. The next day, we threw long toss out in the larger common area where we dug up all the clay for said mound. My arm felt really live; for a 23-year-old washout, I was bringing it. Casting call for “The Rookie 2,” anyone? Staying with sports flicks, I’ll never need to have a mystic catch in the cornfields like Kevin Costner did with his pops in “Field of Dreams.”
By Tuesday morning, I was back in Palm Coast, typing up golf scores and watching a 99-year-old bowler post triple-digit scores that would undoubtedly whip mine. I may have missed spring football, but the break was nice. And now — it’s back to work.
