“Kids are just not running as fast they used.” I heard a coach say over the past six weeks of recent spring track and field competitions. When I attend my youngest’s track and field meets, I pay attention to just about everything. I talk to parents from other teams, who I’ve never met before. I converse with coaches from other teams or officials, usually standing by awaiting some announcement. Sometimes kids from other teams will comment about something that seems awry. If I’m in earshot, I will converse with them about whatever it is that was their wonderment on the field or on the track. And in that first line of this piece, that coach is correct. I’m seeing it only from a Bergen County, New Jersey standpoint. We are way down across the county in high school track and field performances, in the past decade or more. Why? I could guess. One is that the competition in academics could interfere in the latter years of high school. Yet, that is a must to survive in the ‘real world’
Last night I finally received the call I've been waiting... for... not quite a decade... but well... as she put it, "Jody, we can't go a decade again before we call each other." Then we laughed. I remarked, "For sure. Let me see. You were going on a long mission overseas..." She responded, "That's was 2012.... Jody that's a decade." I replied, "So it is." As the first twenty minutes of catch up passed. I had plenty of fried chicken and vegetables that I'd made the night before for my youngest and I to warm up. I only had to prep and cook the rice for our dinner. Our youngest was studying. All remained quiet and our three pets which make very little noise, unless they feel threatened. Such as sensing someone or something is awry, or in our backyard. They'll thump... so loudly you'll think a huge object fell inside our home. Rattling you out of bed at 2am. No matter how exhausted you may be. Which then can set off