I got my basketball hoop. My ingenious handyman Mike Taras put it on my garage yesterday, just as it started raining ice pellets. But that is the middle of this story.
Two blogs ago in What’s Your Story: Thoughts on Rebirth, I wrote that I was putting up a basketball hoop. In doing so, I was rekindling some of my innocence – my love of shooting baskets. I am at a crossroads of my work with my non-profit Mind Body Solutions and of creating an Institute of Consciousness. Now more than ever, I need to feel the spirit of the boy who spent hours playing basketball. I need his youthful exuberance.
Have you noticed that the practicalities of adult life tend to squash playful inspiration? I started feeling silly about my desire for a hoop on my garage almost instantly. I had one before, but had to take it down. Hail damage led me to a new roof a few years ago. At that time, the contractor convinced me that a roof-mounted hoop was not a good idea…they also looked bad. He strongly recommended that I not put my hoop back up. I acquiesced. But I kept my old hoop, hidden in the bushes just off my driveway. Youthful dreams quietly die hard.
As solace, I bought a portable stand-alone hoop under the guise that my hockey-playing son Paul might want to shoot baskets. Yeah, right. There were two problems with this hoop. The first was that shooting alone for me sucked. The hoop was on the other side of the driveway. If the ball took a funny bounce off the rim or if I put up an air ball (something I have been known to do), then the ball bounced off into terrain where my wheelchair could not safely or smartly go. For the last couple years, I have not created the swishing sound of a basketball cutting through nylon net.. The second problem with this portable hoop was that the Plexiglas backboard mysteriously broke over the winter.
So I went to buy a hoop to go on the roof of my garage. The old one that I had saved had seriously rotted. I also wanted to buy a new backboard for the portable hoop. My vision was of a full court in my driveway – the realization of a childhood dream. Of course, the full court was for my son and his buddies, not for me.
After multiple sport stores, I found out that hoops that fix onto roofs are no longer in vogue. They also don’t sell just backboards for portable hoops, let alone one that fits the particular brand that I have. I remained undeterred. I called an installer of hoops and explained my quandary. First, he told me that he has never installed a hoop onto a roof and wouldn’t want to. As a former roofer, he thinks it’s a bad idea and doesn’t want the repercussions if his work leads to roof leaks (a legitimate adult consideration.) Next, he told me that he cannot replace the portable backboard, due to the way they are designed. His final recommendation was that I abandon my dream (I mean Paul’s) of a full court and I give up on the garage-fixed hoop. Instead, I should invest over $1000 and put up a fixed-pole hoop, set in concrete. I did not have the energy to explain that I am in a wheelchair and why that won’t work. I hung up the phone accepting that the vision of hoops in my driveway was dead.
Enter handyman extraordinaire Mike Taras. He digs out my old, rotted hoop and backboard. He says he can find material to make a new backboard and attach it to my roof. He then turns his ingenious gaze to my broken portable hoop and says he can fix that backboard too. He does all the work for under $200. The Dude rocks.
My hoops go up on April 10…seems safe, even in Minnesota. I make one shot before the ice pellets start falling. I wake up this morning to nearly a foot of snow in my driveway. By now I am laughing. My, oh my, there has been resistance to my desire to shoot buckets again, to feel the youthful strength of that boy within my aging heart. But I need his ghost.
This morning I take time to shovel a path in the snow. I want to see my hoop. (Notice the refurbished portable hoop in the background of the picture.) I am on my way to meet a fabulous and visionary donor. She is going to tell me that her foundation, due to current economic realities (another legitimate adult consideration), can no longer fund Mind Body Solutions. But she listens to our story, to all that we are doing. She watches the youthful sparkle in my eyes. Miraculously, she agrees to partially fund us again this year. SWISH!
Do you let the adult world separate you from the innocent strength of your youth?
The path I shoveled to see my hoop.
My reclaimed hoop set against my snow covered roof.