The Old Gym

“UGGG!”

“What, Puck?”

I have about the most honest son on the planet. But with that honesty comes the tendency to tell everyone exactly what’s on his mind. No filters.

“This looks terrible!”

“That’s not a very nice thing to say, Puck.”

“But, Mom! I’m not saying it tastes bad. It just looks like barf!”

I looked at the bowl of chicken chili. There was some truth to the statement. Any bowl of chunky soup can have that effect, I suppose. But there is a time and a place for that level of honesty. We talked.

Either way, Oxbear had three bowls of it, and Yali gave me a big, “Yum!” 66.7% satisfied. I’d call that a success.

Earlier in the day, Puck had returned to school in the usual fashion, taking a running leap across the gym floor and sliding into a pile of loud 3rd grade boys ready for trouble.

This time, as the crowds drenched Yali in high fives and fist bumps after being separated by ten days of spring break, Heidi employed a new – and pretty successful – strategy.

“See?” she said sweetly to him. “I waited until everyone else left so I could have you to myself.”

Her reward was a more obliging than usual hug and kiss.

That old school gym carries some memories. I recall being a VBS leader when I was in about 5th grade, toting around a group of seven or eight highly active kids, some of them only a few years younger than myself, one of them being my brother and then his older Japanese-American friend who might have been taller than I was. I don’t remember getting much accomplished that week. Come to think of it, how I was allowed to be a VBS leader when I was only 11, I still can’t quite figure.

Then there was playing German Dodgeball. I got hit in the face so hard once, I couldn’t see straight. I don’t remember them playing German Dodgeball again after that. Too many power-armed young men eager to inflict damage.

Reciting a lengthy poem on stage for a huge missions dinner one Sunday night. The spotlight was so bright, I couldn’t see the crowds. That helped.

And of course countless junior high and senior high Sunday School classes, all the boys shooting hoops before the lesson. Good times.

Funny thing is – despite my terrible lack of ability to smell anything very well – that gym still has the same smell it did all those twenty some-odd years ago. Whoever knew I’d be sending my son there all this time later.