Almost!

When I was a little boy my brothers and I watched every minute of Sunday NFL football that our single channel would allow. If we were lucky, or someone climbed on the roof and turned the antenna, this meant two games; if we were not, we either had to go outside and play football ourselves or watch a well-worn version of Bye Bye Birdie; a channel 13 favorite! Yes, I was raised in the caveman years of television.

Winter Sunday afternoons consisted of three little boys wearing any clothing item football related, draped over the furniture trying to find a way to stay focused for the four hours it took to decide the outcome of a football game. Often we would get up right in the middle of the action and go outside a throw the ball around. Of course we were practicing our ball handling skills, but the most important skill was learning to make a football move without the appearance of really trying! What you did was not as important as what you looked like while you were doing it! “It’s better to look good than to feel good and darling you look marvelous”…well, kind of, I know what Billy Crystal was trying to say!

Of course I have never been able to shake this idea of being cool completely, I am a male. But as I get older one of the things I've realized is that these professional athletes were trying to appear flippant partly to cover just how much pain that last amazing play, and really the entire season before it, inflicted! I now understand what my father meant when (after an awesome tackle) his first word was “Ouch” instead of “Yay”! Turns out missing work and missing school are two entirely different missings!

But of course there were valuable lessons hidden in this “be cool” training we practiced every day. I learned to approach every situation as though I belonged in it; I learned confidence. I learned that playing through the pain could mean working at a job I dislike while I waited for the one I really wanted to open up. I learned to not sound the alarm when a friend wanted help with a problem that terrified me.

But in spite of my fifty years of practice, this morning I almost slipped. As I attempted to place the massive 20 lb. bag of dog food on the self-check counter at Walmart, my lower back decided I should not. The look on my face as I frantically searched for a shopping buggy to carry the load to my car was obvious to the older cashier standing a few feet away and she politely asked me if I needed some help! “No thanks” I managed, “I just thought for a second I had lost my wallet!” Almost!