Weekly Mail November 29, 2015

         A few days before Thanksgiving 1992, my mom was lamenting the way some of her co workers at the time were treating the holiday. Someone was having hot dogs as opposed to turkey, someone was going away to an island by themselves, stuff like that. Young  smart a$$ that I was back then, I told my mom had she put these thoughts to paper a few months earlier, they may have let her address the delegates at that year's Republican National Convention in Houston.
         Alas, now that I'm older, I appreciate more what my mom was really trying to say that day. The best part of these holidays is spending them with your family. And the traditions that get passed down from year to year make you remember the good times in your life, the fun times when you were a kid, and Thanksgiving meant 4 straight days off from school.
          This Thanksgiving was fun because I got to spend it with my side of the family. Tara unfortunately had to work, and I missed watching the parade with her and Timmy this year. So I ended up doing something else that sounded like a good idea at the time, but ended up being one of the dumbest things I've ever done.
            After I dropped Tara off at work, Tim and I had breakfast, and then we headed over to Oceanside Park. Earlier last week, I had gotten an e-mail from Oceanside Soccer inviting all the coaches and dads to participate in a soccer game 9:30 AM Thanksgiving morning. I figured it would be a bunch of the guys I coached with, and they would bring their kids and we would run around goofing off and having a good time. Last summer, Timmy was doing a soccer clinic in Rockville Centre every Thursday afternoon and just a couple weeks after I had gotten out of the hospital, they had a kids vs parents game to end up the season. It lasted like 10 minutes, we played on a tiny field and after myself and another dad scored goals, we let the kids get the next 3 and everyone was happy. (I was particularly happy that I could run a bit without having to go back to the hospital)

This was nothing like that.

          For starters, when I got to the field, there was NOBODY that I recognized. Most of the guys that were there were either fathers or coaches from the travel team, or alumni of the program. There wasn't anybody from the intramural program there except for one guy I knew who eventually showed up. There were exactly 24 of us there, enough for two full squads of 11 plus a goalie. And most of these guys were taking this game seriously. This would prove problematic because 1) I am still technically recovering and although I have been working out, I'm not in "run up and down a soccer field for 90 minutes" kind of shape. But more importantly, 2) I have never played in any organized soccer game in my life! And I don't care what anyone says, all of these guys at one time or another, played organized soccer, most likely in high school, maybe even in college. There were a few older guys who spoke Italian who probably have been playing for years.

I was screwed.

           For the most part the guys were understanding, having figured out I was out of my element. A couple of the guys acted like we were playing in the World Cup Final, but to be honest, I just felt embarrassed. And there was no running away, because if I left, our team would be a man down. I was praying someone else would show up, and then I'd sub out, grab Timmy and get the hell out of dodge. Poor Timmy at first had no one to play with because none of these guys brought their kids, which reminded me of the line from the 1993 film The Program, when the QB kept saying "Let's put the women and children to bed, and go looking for dinner." (Kevin Woods thought that was the best line in the history of cinema, I never quite got it, till last Thursday) Fortunately, a couple of kids showed up so the morning wasn't a total loss for him.

       As for me, when it mercifully came to an end, my team got demolished, and I was hurting something awful. As of this writing, my legs still feel like lead. The good news is, even though I was sucking wind most of the match, I didn't feel any chest pain, so there's always that. Oh, well, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

NEWS ITEM: Black Friday Madness

           It happens every year. The store doors open at some ungodly hour on Black Friday, and almost immediately, people get trampled, fights break out, arrests are made and scores of people get hurt and some even get killed. You can set your watch by it. I got to work at 8 AM on Friday, and I already had a CNN alert saying that a riot had broken out at a mall in Kentucky. In another incident in Saginaw, Michigan, a woman grabbed a vegetable steamer from a defenseless little girl. There were several other incidents as well. The cities may change, but the stores and the stories are the same thing. Every year.

           And yet, every year, starting from mid-November on, the commercials bombard out TV's every night. The Black Friday 50% off sale. Doors open at 5 no 4, no how about MIDNIGHT! on Black Friday. Every year it gets worse.
          
           Used to be, the media referred to the day after Thanksgiving as Black Friday. Stores didn't actually advertise the day as Black Friday. Everyone knew it was the busiest shopping day of the year, just for the fact that many folks either had the day or took the day off. It was a good chance to get a head start on your Christmas shopping.

          But now, you see the obnoxious commercials. And what's worse, there are now stores that open late Thanksgiving night or worse are open all day on Thanksgiving, for those folks like the ones my mother was talking about, all those many years ago. There were a couple of memes on Facebook saying that nobody bats an eyelash when firefighters cops and medical people have to work on Thanksgiving, but we all get upset when someone has to work at Wal-Mart. That's missing the point. The above mentioned professions are vital services needed everyday of the week. Nobody needs to get a vegetable steamer on Thanksgiving, and certainly no one needs to beat up a kid to get their hands on one.

            Look, I get it OK. I know in this country, the business of business is business. I know that it's a jungle out there. But I also know that family and tradition are important. And I just can't help but wonder, if these stores maybe backed off on their in your face advertising, stayed closed on Thanksgiving, opened at a reasonable hour on Friday, we wouldn't have a lot of the bull$h-t we have had the past few years.

That's about all I got this week folks.

Have a Great Week!