Thursday, January 29, 2009

Basketball is life. Mexico, apparently, is not.

This won't be exact because Carla didn't write anything down but, to the best of my memory of her memory, here goes . . .
Ellie, to Walker: What is "dead"?
Walker: Just . . . lay on the ground and you don't do anything.
Ellie: Do we die?
Walker: No. People in Ohio don't die. It's a nice place to live. You know where a good place to die is, though? Mexico. Because it's really hot in Mexico and people get all sweaty and they just die. Because they turn in to a big bag of sweat.

I took Walker to the library the other night for a surprise because he had been such a good boy that day (actually we had been planning on taking him regardless but it just worked out). A bunch of guys from the high school basketball team were there to read the kids books. After the books, the library lady opened the floor - to a bunch of shy three-and-four-year-olds - for questions to the team. When no one asked any, she started asking some of her own, which she had written down. It became very obvious that she was not well-versed in basketball-speak and the next 15 minutes were very painful. After that, she said that there were some basketball shirts to give away and the backs the shirts said "The 6th sense". She's apparently more of a movie fan than a basketball fan. Well, Walker ended up getting a shirt because he knew Anderson Varejao had wild hair on the Cavs. When we got home . . .
Walker: I thought I was going to have to give the lady money for my shirt.
Me: Huh?
Walker: 6 cents.

Also, while we were there, I read a kids' book about Lebron James when he was growing up to avoid being embarrassed for the library lady. It was one of those maybe 1st grade reading level books that has some words bolded and then definitions at the bottom... remember those? This one defined words like "Championship", "Media", etc. Well, one of the bolded words was "Brotha". At the bottom of the page - Bru-thu: A very close friend. Now I keep singing to myself like Mr. Rogers, "Won't you be, my brotha?"

2 comments:

Dale and Gail said...

Love it, Kurt. Walker explaining life to Ellie...how fun. As for "Brotha", I remember when Mrs. McAlister bemoaned the fact that the kids' names in books now had to be "Carlos" and "Tyrell" instead of good old Dick and Jane. Ah, diversity.

kay said...

When it's my time to go, I hope all I have to do is sweat. Gotta love em!

Ellie hurt her eye Tuesday evening.
I made a comment about it turning black and blue. Well, Papa came in and asked about her eye and Ellie proceeded in squinting and saying "Mommy I think it's turning blue and black." Gotta love em!