Pains

I work for a software company and work in an office so I don’t do any physical work, unless you call carrying my laptop to a meeting physical work. I can also work from home and connect to the office, so if I’m not feeling so great, I can still work. I don’t get sick too often anyway, so I don’t miss many days from work. Add to all that the fact that no one in the media is following me around or analyzing every move I make and I’d say I have a pretty cushy work life. 

Sometimes I feel bad for professional athletes, especially in sports-obsessed cities like Boston. As a former wannabe athlete, I can tell you that no one wants to get hurt and they don’t want anyone to know they got hurt. So these guys play when they’re hurt (hello Patrice Bergeron of the Boston Bruins) and don’t let on as to how bad they really are. At times, they’re not playing well and we find out later that they’ve been battling a serious injury for days or weeks. Then in cases where someone is hurt and they’re perceived as not toughing it out and still playing, they’re ripped in the media and on every sports talk show by every know-it-all “expert” alive (hello pretty much all the major league baseball players).

When I was in high school I hurt my throwing arm at the beginning of the baseball season but I didn’t tell the coach because I wanted to play. When I couldn’t throw the ball from shortstop to first base anymore the coach finally asked me what the heck was wrong with me. When I told him my arm was killing me he wanted to know why I hadn’t told him earlier. I told him that it hadn’t been that bad until the last couple of days and that I wanted to play. What I didn’t tell him was that I had a childhood incident that haunted me and wouldn’t let me say I was hurt.

We were having one of our neighborhood softball games in our backyard on a nice sunny day. We had about five guys on each team, including three of my older brothers. We had been playing for a while and we took a break to get some water. In those days we didn’t go in the house to get a drink of water, we drank the water right out of the hose. There was nothing like a cold drink out of the hose on a hot summer day. Plus, you could soak your hat or your shirt and stay cooler longer. Mom wouldn’t have let us do that at the kitchen sink.

We all got our drinks and went back to the game. However, I think that I drank too much water because when I started running around again I got a really bad stomach ache. When it was my team’s turn in the field, I couldn’t even stand up straight so I lay down on a picnic bench. I guess no one on my team noticed because the inning started and the first batter hit an easy ground ball right to the spot I should have been in. Needless to say, my brother that was pitching was not happy when he saw me laying on the bench.

When he asked me what I was doing over there laying on the bench, I didn’t quite know what to say so I responded in a pitiful voice “I’ve got pains!” When everyone stopped laughing five minutes later, the mocking began. For the next few minutes after that, I was treated to “I’ve got pains” being said in high pitched voices or like a 3-year old. I was just a kid myself, but I was humiliated. I think I heard that wonderful phrase from my brothers for the next five years whenever I felt sick or got hurt doing something.

So when my coach asked me why I hadn’t told him I was hurt it was kind of a matter of pride. I guess in some small way, I didn’t want him to make fun of me for having a sore arm. In retrospect, I probably humiliated myself by not being able to reach first base from shortstop. I don’t know, maybe some professional athletes had similar situations to mine when they were kids and as adults their pride kicks in, too, and they play hurt.

I’m glad that I don’t get sick much and I can take a day off when I need to without being made fun of or mocked. I just hope that as I head into my senior years I don’t have to lie down on a bench somewhere because “I’ve got pains.” 

Back From Vacation

I was on vacation last week with some of my wife’s family and they have younger children in the 6 – 9 years old range. It’s been a while since I’ve had to deal with kids that age, as my kids are now 17 and 20. It didn’t take me long to realize there are some major differences between my kids and the others.

The first difference was being woken up by kids at 6:00 in the morning. At that early hour, they are up and ready to go. You’re still sleeping? Not for long! They tried to stay quiet, but after about ten minutes of progressively louder whispering they started talking in their regular, middle-of-the-day voices. They obviously didn’t get the memo that it is alright to sleep past the normal time they get up for school. I usually get up at 6:00 AM for work, but I’d be very content to sleep past that time for a week or two. So I lose a few hours of the day by sleeping in, but who cares? I mean, it’s VACATION! My son could sleep until 10:00 or 11:00 (maybe even noon) and not feel bad about it. Of course, he’s not going to bed at 8:00 – 9:00 PM either, so I guess there is a tradeoff there.

The next difference is that younger kids go in and out of the house about a thousand times a day. And they slam the door every time! Not long after eating breakfast they are out to ride their bikes (slam!). After a few minutes one of them needs a drink of water, so he or she comes back in (slam!). Guzzle down that water and it’s time to get back outside like there’s a 30-second time limit on the break (slam!). Then someone realizes that someone else just went in for water, so they come in to get a drink, too (slam!). Repeat this process for every kid (slam!) multiple times (slam, slam, slam!) and…well, you get the picture. My kids either stay in the house, or when they go out there’s a quiet click as the door closes and we don’t see them or hear them for two or three hours. When they come back they quietly close the door. Ah, that’s nice.

The last difference is that younger kids get bored during the day. What? Bored? Did I mention that it’s VACATION? I guess that having fun for hours at a time gets old pretty quick for younger kids. You can only ride your bike, play games, watch movies, go to the beach and goof around for so long, and then it gets monotonous. Throw in breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks in between, and it seems like a pretty good day to me. I have a remedy for the boredom: sleep later and there won’t be as many hours to fill! That would take care of a couple of issues at the same time. We’d all be able to sleep later and the kids wouldn’t be so bored.

Now I don’t want it to sound like it was all bad or negative, because it wasn’t. It was actually a really great week. I had fun with the kids at the beach and I love to listen to them as they tell me about things from their perspective.  I got to spend some time with both my own kids, which doesn’t happen as much as I’d like these days. I got to spend some time with my in-laws, both of whom are kind, generous and entertaining. Last, but not least important, my wife and I got to spend a lot of time together, without the usual stuff that gets in the way at home, like work and schedules. You can’t beat that.

The week flew by and it wasn’t long before I was back to the real world. It’s at times like those that I sometimes wish I was still a kid, where vacation is not just a week or two, but the whole summer, and where I’d have so much time in the day to do whatever I wanted that I’d get bored. I’d just have to remember to close the door quietly on my way out.