The Author Reminisces But Also Discusses Sports and Politics

I did not attend this Summer camp

Yesterday the missus and I walked in a park and noted a lot of day camp activity. I never went to a day camp as a child. I did go through the rite of passage of attending two Summer overnight camps.

(At this point the writer waxes nostalgic.)

Turning in soda bottles for change. Nickel candy bars. When I was a kid we roamed the streets. No play dates. Little supervision. We figured it out on our own. We even put together our own baseball games. No corporate sponsors. We met at the field, chose sides, set the ground rules and played. We had fun too. (Okay, who was we? My friends and I.)

Summer camp. Having your care package of grandma’s peanut butter cookies swiped right in front of you and the contents devoured. I think I got one. Getting pantsed. How fucking stupid was that. Boys? I never understood bullies. I had less trouble with them then most non bullies. In large part because I would have been too much trouble, being athletic and all. Yeah, I was small, but wiry and tough as nails. Bullies preferred weaklings. Not someone who might fight back. 

I got into a few fights. Did okay because when I fought I went berserk. Tough to beat. I did get jumped in the bathroom once, high school. Outnumbered significantly by older guys. Not exactly a fair fight, but I took it without squealing. There was a point at which I knew what was coming and steeled myself for it. They didn’t really hurt me, not even my ego. Simply made for a story to tell later on. There was a bully in elementary school who we called the choker because he would choke his victims. Not seriously, but enough so it hurt your goddamned neck. He picked on me once too often and one day I went up to him during recess and gave him a karate chop on the shoulder. He never bothered me again. His name was Mark Furhman, same as the cop in the OJ Simpson case. Don’t know what became of him. Never cared.

There was occasional black-on-white crime at the schools I went to. You’re not supposed to mention it but it happened. Tough black kids knew they could get money off weakling white boys. I was rarely bothered. Once a kid smaller and younger than me tried to scare me into giving him a quarter. I laughed. He slunk away. True story.

Relations were pretty good between kids of different colors when I was a kid. As good if not better than today. I honestly thought we were moving away from racism when I was a teenager and into my twenties. Boy was I wrong. The signs were there, though. Civil Rights legislation had been passed, African Americans were being elected to political positions, there was greater visibility — and more positive — of Blacks on TV and in films. You heard of Black entrepreneurs. The n word was becoming a taboo, expect to use in context. Like it was cool then to say, “I heard this bigot call my friend a n——r.” I don’t think the total prohibition on using the word that we practice today is a good idea. (Of course it’s not my call.) It sure hasn’t kept racists from using it, if anything it’s emboldened them. Cant’ say that word? Watch me. Banning words is setting a bad precedent. If the n word then why not ban fag or faggot too? You could make a case for bitch as well — when used about a woman. 

Anyway I was talking about how racism seemed — at least to a naive white boy like me — to be fading away in the seventies. I was shocked to leave Berkeley and go off to college and meet real-live racists. I thought they all lived in the south. So I missed the call on that one although I think few people expected the resurgence of bigotry that emerged as a backlash against Obama and then with the tacit blessing of Trumpy. Boy did they crawl out from under their rocks after he was elected. That’s why he was so loved. You scratch a Trumpy supporter and you’ve got pure racist. Fuck those people.

I’m changing the subject.

It’s interesting what sports can do for you. Or to you. It can really give you perspective on the up and down nature of life. It can teach you to take the highs and lows of life in stride. Of course most sports fans don’t learn those lessons. No one can crash and burn like a sports fan. The hope is what kills you. If you really understand sports you become humble. You learn to appreciate. You take nothing for granted. You learn to ride out the tough times. You learn that sometimes in life you’ve just got to grind it out. But some people take it all too seriously and get angry or depressed when their team losses a big game or suffers a heart-breaking defeat. I went through that for awhile, learned my lesson.

Tribalism. Your team, fuck the other teams, especially your rival. That’s fine in sports (except when it leads to fisticuffs or yelling at people) but it has infected our politics. No compromise. No attempt to understand the other side. No attempt to work for the common good. The other side isn’t just wrong, they are evil personified. There will be blood. Okay, there has been. But more’s a coming. I don’t see how this will all end. I don’t know how civility and reason can make a comeback in this country. I hope it will, but how is the question.