The Sporting Events Not Played

I'm not even sure at this point if you'll get the chance to read this. Friday is only a day away, and I am still using the car as my home office. At least it's warm and I can charge my devices. However, even my iPhone is providing only sporadic Internet service. It's difficult playing Realtor when contracts, listings, and postings depend on invisible means of transportation to arrive where they need to go.

I have a GE SUPERADIO that has been at my side during every power outage in the past twenty-five years. I was the kid who would fall asleep with a small transistor radio close to my ear. Back then it was a huge deal to be able to pull stations in from Chicago, Toronto, Detroit, and even as far west as Denver.

AM radio is the only way that many of us have been getting information all week. As I type I'm being treated to a deja vu moment by former WTIC-1080's Dean of Sports — the one and only Arnold Dean. Along with the legendary Bob Steele, they were my first constant companions of the media world. I was a true AM radio geek up until the very moment that ESPN and MTV intercepted my loyalties. The day our family hooked up to cable TV was the day that my AM radio was banished to the basement. The introduction of the Internet buried it even further.

The weekend, for me, was about the youth sporting events not played. For our football league, it meant waiting for another Sunday to play the championship games that were scheduled. Most amusing to me was the state of denial that most of the coaches were in on the Friday night before the storm. One coach told me that he had heard that the storm had been downgraded sometime in the afternoon. Another suggested that we wait until sometime Saturday to make a decision because the weathermen are usually wrong. Some of them would've built a dome if they could have assembled supplies and manpower quickly enough.

So throughout the high school football game that night, while most of them where telling parents to sit tight for a decision to be made, I was telling them I was 99 percent sure that we wouldn't be playing on Sunday. Yes, coaches are a hardcore and select group. It's difficult to shut the competitive switch off. These are men who draw up new plays during work meetings and skip lunches to get to practices on time.

Well ... optimism is no match for a charging Nor'easter. And we all know the outcome and what the approaching week had waiting for us. Outdoor youth sports were not on the list — the Giants and Dolphins game was — just not on the TV.  Baseball was meant to be listened to on the radio; football most certainly was not.

Playing Racko is a blast in the flickering candlelight. Trying to read how much you are owed for having three houses on St. James Place is definitely not. Listening to the governor's updates is helpful. Listening to the governor say "um-um" thirty times a minute is not.

The week turned into a cruel version of the Arthritic Olympics. Snow-blowing a foot of fluffy snow is like chasing a butterfly across a field of daffodils. But shoveling fifty pound mounds of slush was like clearing piles of wet cement with a spoon.

The Boy and I dragged fallen branches, cut damaged trees, and cleared an entire forest. We even drained Lake Garda, raked the bottom and refilled it. I longed to be back at the football fields for the day picking up after people and selling T-shirts and jackets.

Back inside the house I was on a three-game Racko losing streak to the Boy. I had taunted him and Wife after winning the first few games and announced that I was unbeatable. The problem with games like Yahtzee and Racko is that too much of it is left up to chance.
 
This story was supposed to end warm and fuzzy with The Boy and I bonding over yard work and board games. If my power had been restored by now you would have had your happy ending. But I still can't flush a toilet or charge the iPad (I'm accustomed to doing both at once). This column is now overdue and I just want five minutes to vacuum.

Not to worry though — this article will be submitted and posted at 4 a.m. Friday morning. At 6:11 a.m. the same idiot will be the first to post a comment under a fake name about how my words are just a waste of space. And for once he'd probably be correct. I'm holding out hope that his little cave is as dim as his wit.

Yes, my dear readers, being without power for days and days can bring families and friends together ... just not at a youth sporting event. You begin to realize that the older your kids get, the harder it becomes to cheat at games of chance. You also realize your body is in decline because instead of dragging the kiddies along with the debris, they are rolling you onto the tarp for the ride.

And isn't an important part of parenthood about transitioning our children from adolescence into adulthood? Isn't our role as parents to show them that a little adversity makes a person better prepared for the hard times that every adult will likely face? Oh who am I fooling? Enough family time! Turn on the power, clear the fields, and let's see which kids are better at knocking each other over.