Laughter, the best preventive medicine

“It” started a week later at the first practice. One of the players, a short stocky kid named Chad, turned out to be the son of Betsy, my gym buddy Mikey’s sister-in-law. 

We started practice with stretching, and then had the boys form two lines to shoot lay-ups.  After making several, Chad missed one.  He apologized to me, a pained look on his face. I told him to make the next one.  When his turn came up again, he caught the ball, his face a mask of grim determination.  He dribbled once with his left, switched to his right, took a long stride, up and in.  Perfect form.  No happiness, none of the cockiness exhibited by his teammates when they made a shot.  Just relief.  We ran the drill for ten more minutes and Chad made all but one of his shots.

“Everybody loose?” I asked the boys. “Let’s do some sprints.” Chad asked me if we had to run sprints because he missed another layup.  I told him no, and looked over at KC.  KC looked away.  The boy he had mentored had died running sprints.

“We are not running because any of you missed a layup,” I said to the whole team. I pointed to one of the kids.  “We are running because this young man said Coach KC is a miserable tyrant so old he played in short shorts and high socks, and shot his foul shots underhand into a peach basket.”

“Why you rotten little weasel,” KC said with mock anger. He took a step toward the kid who started to laugh.  The other players laughed, all except Chad.  He barely managed a weak smile.

 I said to myself, ‘If he doesn’t learn to relax, someday he’s gonna need a drink just to get through the day.’   I made it my mission to lighten Chad’s burden a little, to see that he had some fun.

Today I will try to lighten someone’s burden, today I will try to make someone laugh.

Life on Life’s Terms II © 2015 by Ken Montrose

(Just a reminder: LOLT II is a work of fiction.  Any resemblance to anyone you might know is purely coincidental.)

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The ebook version of Forgiveness in Recovery is available 3/16 through 3/20 at  http://www.amazon.com/Ken-Montrose/e/B001K8MG0S.