Three Shots and a Bump
By ice rivers
- 332 reads
Lynn and I arrived at the senior center 30 minutes before the beginning of our chair yoga class. Chair yoga takes up half of the gym. Above the gym is the indoor running/walking/limping track. We wondered whether or not we should go upstairs to the track or hold on to our front row seats for the yoga class.
I had another idea. I decided to walk to the other half of the gym which was separated from the yoga class by a foldable wall. Lynn agreed to hold on to our seats while I walked behind the wall onto the basketball court in the back gym.
At first I was going to walk around the court a few times to get in some extra steps. The court was empty. I noticed a rack of basketballs. I hadn't touched a basketball in 40 years.
I grabbed a ball from the rack and "dribbled" the length of the court. It felt as if I had never dribbled a basketball before in my life. I waited for the muscle memory to return. I had played a lot of backyard half court basketball in my day. I could hold my own with the worst of them.
The memory wasn't coming back. I had to concentrate on every bounce because each bounce was interfering with each step. Each step, even without the basketball, is a problem. With the court empty, each bounce sounded way too loud. I was aware of the folks above me on the track looking down at the commotion.
I decided to attempt a foul shot. I've shot thousands of foul shots in my life but zero in the last four decades. I settled in at the foul line. I looked up at the basket. It was very high and very far away.
My first thought was the one hand push shot. I raised the gigantic ball to my forehead.
Nope, that's not gonna work.
I better go for the old fashioned two hand set shot.
I dribbled the ball a couple of times.
I bent my knees and pushed with both hands.
Maybe you've heard the expression "nuthin but net" which means that the shot was so accurate that it never touched the rim and barely moved the net as it passed through the hoop.
Maybe you've heard the expression "air ball" which describes an embarrassing shot that describes a pathetic shot in which the ball falls short of the rim and only hits the net.
I came up with a new variation.
"Nuthin not even net"
My shot didn't even hit the net, the bottom of which is about nine feet off the floor. My "shot" rose to a maximum height of seven feet and was three feet short of the basket. My shot hit nuthin at all.
I laughed in disbelief. I retrieved the ball and dribbled back to the line. I knew I had to bend my knees further and extend my arms a lot more. I repeated the procedure from the first foul shot but added a corrective dip and push. The ball went up in the air again, this time maybe eight and a half feet into the air....still clownishly too low and not far enough.
I had seen this shot before. Every so often in the backyard courts; somebody's mother or grandfather would step out on the court and take a shot. Those shots resembled mine but actually came closer to the rim.
I was definitely aware that the people on the track, at least a couple of them, had seen both of my impotent efforts.
I tried my third shot. I dipped. I pushed. I kept my eyes on the rim. The ball rose eleven feet in the air heading towards the basket, all of this in agonizing slow motion as the imaginary announcer called off the last seconds of the imaginary game.
Three
Two
One
The shot is up.
He beat the clock.
It's high enough.
Aw Jesus it wasn't far enough.
Air ball. Air ball. Air ball.
Well, that's obviously it for Ice, Bill. He's got nuthin left. Get him off the goddamned court. Get him over to that chair yoga class. Maybe he can handle that.
Maybe ten minutes had passed. I returned to the chair that Lynn had saved for me.
She asked me how it went.
All I could say was
"not too good".
The class was about to begin when a guy about my age limped in and sat down with a sigh on the chair next to mine.
"How many did you make?" he asked, "I was on the track and I saw a couple of your shots.
I said "well it's been forty years."
He offered his fist for a fist bump.
I bumped it.
We nodded to one another
He understood and so did I.
- Log in to post comments
Comments
I understood completely and
I understood completely and take my hat off to you for having a go. There's so many things I've acheived in the past, but now they've become impossible to do without injuring myself, so well done is all I can say.
Jenny.
- Log in to post comments
Ageing, they say, is supposed
Ageing, they say, is supposed to be like a fine wine, we’ll get better with age...they lied. I can commiserate with your attempt to reaffirm a youthful ability Ice; I’ve had much the same outcome in my own attempts. Great story, auto-biographical and humorous; I enjoyed reading it and the added bonus of simpatico moments.
- Log in to post comments
as for basketball as for writing
made me think about the writing equivalent of air balls and nuthin but net... nuthin but net seems like only an infinite possiblity, rim shots what we always aim for... thanks for the thought provacations!
- Log in to post comments