I'm going to take a break from the design related posts that I've done in the past and tell you a little story about my childhood.

When I was a kid, our church participated in the RA program.  This involved times of teaching, home/civic activities as well as memorization.  As you might imagine, I excelled at the memorization.  Where as most kids would take no pride in such an achievement, I did. I wasn't good at a lot of things growing up.  I was always the smallest kid; I wasn't athletic in the least, and if I was ever picked it was to be the score keeper.  So, I really enjoyed the Wednesday portion of RAs because we got to recite the things we had memorized.

Until one night ...

The most popular jerk of a jock was a guy named Jay.  He got his attributes honestly, and one Wednesday night his dad was running the show for our 3rd grade group.  Clearly our regular leader had experienced some blunt force trauma to the head and let his responsibilities fall to this Philistine.  The night deteriorated pretty quickly.  He began our time together by rambling on for about 3.5 minutes about something incomprehensible.  Then it dawned on him that the gym was free.  He closed the lesson and said, "No, memorization tonight, boys.  Let's go play some basketball."

For me, basketball was bad enough, but as it turns out he planned to teach us a thing or two.  The thing he felt we needed to learn was how to shoot a free-throw.  He told us to all line up while he demonstrated the proper way to shoot a basketball.  I immediately went to the rear of the line.  Jay ran to the front, but was just beat out by this quicker friend Dan.  Jay's dad saw with disappointment than his son was clearly beat, but corrected the matter with, "Dan, no pushing.  Got to the back of the line."

I tried to let Dan skip.  It was a no go.

Jay made the first free-throw, and it was nothing but net.  On down the line we went.  Most of the guys came close; some of them made it; everyone at least hit the backboard.  Then it was my turn.  I had been dreading this moment.  I am not good at sports, but I'm a thinker.  I knew there was only one way I could get out of this without embarrassing myself beyond belief.  I spread my legs, swung the ball between them and granny shot that thing as hard as I possibly could.  The angels were on my side that day.  As the ball flew through the air the kids began to snicker, but when it clanged the inside of the rim their laughter erupted into applause.  I victoriously made my way to the back of the line basking in the glow of my good fortune.

The angles were on my side that day, but Jay's dad wasn't.  "That's not how I taught you to shoot it."

"But, it went in.  I can't make it if I shoot it your way."

"You won't be able to shoot like that in a game" he reasoned.

"I'll never play in a game.  I don't like basketball" I pointed out.

"What are you going to do one day when your kid asks you how to shoot a basketball" he posed.

"I don't know.  If he's my size I probably won't try to make him shoot at a goal 7 feet above his head" I responded.

That, as it turned out, was the last straw.  He made me walk back up to the free-throw line and shoot it the right way.  I did ... You know that circle for which the free-throw line is the diameter?  Yeah, the ball didn't make it out of that circle.  The laughter resumed, and I took the more familiar walk of shame to the back of the line.

This week my 4 year old son wanted to learn how to play basketball.  You know what?  It turns out he didn't care that I couldn't shoot.