World Cup fever is dying down a little here in the US of A since we lost recently in the World Cup. I was able to watch few minutes of the USA/Belgium game at work during my lunch that day. Much better than dodging the Communist News Network that is perpetually on in there. I actually watched some of the other games on TV at home, which is rather unusual for me. I’m pretty much a football only kind of a guy so that stretch from Super Bowl Sunday to Hall of Fame game leaves a big sports gap for me each summer. I didn’t used to be that way though that’s a story for another day.
The skills these soccer players have honed are so amazing to me it’s like watching art, unlike Kobe taking that previously illegal extra step before he dunks which isn’t. I’ve never been a big soccer fan even though I did play very briefly way back when. When World Cup soccer comes around it manages to tickle the memory banks of another time and place.
I spent the first month of 6th grade attending school in a small schoolhouse in Townsend, Vermont. How small? There were 4 rooms with 96 students in grades 1-8. The town population at the time was less than a 1,000. You could dial just the last 4 numbers of a phone number to call up a friend down the street. I am pretty sure the only fall sport was the soccer team for 6th-8th grade boys. I was pretty good athletically at that time but soccer was definitely not in my wheelhouse. I think I was asked to play based on the touch football games we played in the town square park. I really had to work to convince the kids I played with that football didn’t have a goal like soccer, just a goal line. Sometimes one of the teachers or some of the other kids would watch us play after school. I must have made some kind of impression on somebody because they asked me to play for the school team. I had no idea what the hell I was doing. I usually was stuck in the back row as fullback and spent most of the games talking to the other fullback and the goalie. The school team had a couple of really good forwards who managed to keep the ball in the other teams end most of the game, which really helped our defense. If you don’t have to make a play what can go wrong? It was my first taste of being the Little Leaguer the coach has to play so he’s stuck in right field because the ball never goes there, thereby minimizing the potential for any damage he could do. I was used to being picked early in pickup games and being in the thick of the action so this was something new to me. My soccer career lasted 3 only games, we won 2 and tied 1 before I had to go back home. My stat line was zeroes across the board, though most importantly no dumb plays to allow an easy goal.
When the month ended I didn’t want to go back home. I kicked and screamed and made a big stink but being 11 I didn’t have any say in the matter. I really can’t point to any specific thing that made that little town so hard to let go of. I just felt really good being there. Most of the names and the faces have been lost to the passing of the years, though that brief sojourn in very small town New England and my equally brief soccer career will always have a warm special place in my heart. It’s been quite a while since I went through there by car but the mental photographs I’ve kept I can pull out and peruse any time I chose. They always manage to make me smile inside.
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