Flashback

When the boys were in their preteen and early teen years, Cory would take up their challenge to play “Around the World” at the basketball goal attached to our garage. Cory, a basketball player in his own right, played by the rules: you earned a win fair and square; no trophies for showing up here. Games involved wagers with imaginary money, and to this day, I think one of our sons owes Cory several million basketball bucks.

When our older son was a young teen, the inevitable happened. He beat his dad and documented the hard won victory with a celebratory lap around the outside of the house. During our last visit with our grandsons, Cory shared that story with our grandsons. Dillon, not yet a teen, and Parker, four years younger, had been playing “Around the World” with Pops in their driveway for several years, but now the stakes were higher. Pops had dangled a victory lap in front of them.

Shortly thereafter, that very same day, I heard a squeaky preadolescent boy’s voice as he made his first  victory lap around his house. Dillon had bested Pops and, in his best imitation of his own dad’s celebration thirty years earlier, was letting the world know that the baton had been passed.

Thirty years: the blink of an eye!