More Plotzketball

Another beautiful morning of playing plotzketball on the pock-marked concrete middle school playground. Despite disagreements, trash talking, temper tantrums and the usual amount of Alpha-male posturing, this Saturday morning game is the high point of everyone's week.

Women never understand. In a woman's group, after ten minutes in the same room every woman will know every other woman, the names of their children, their favorite recipes and their aspirations for retirement. Plotzketball at James Plotz Middle School serves a different purpose. Even though some of the older players have been playing in the same game on the same court at the same time since before some of the younger players were born, most people don't know a thing about anyone else's personal lives, except as it pertains to the way they play ball. What is their job? Their last name? Do they have children? Where do they live? No idea.

But do they like to shoot with their left hand or right? Do they play hard defense or just loaf? Can they be counted on to make a clutch shot? This is what matters most.

Today one of the guys was talking about his upcoming fortieth birthday. The other guys were ribbing him about how soon he would be arthritic and unable to play ball. While they joked, Plotnik sat back on his heels, smiling to himself, thinking that he turned forty once, but damned if he can remember when.

But he does know that when he turned forty The Great BeeziWeezie was two. Now, she's journeying self-confidently from one island in the Galapagos to another. The Great PunkyDunky was ten. Now, he's a world traveler, adaptable to any situation, and looking to a limitless horizon.

If one of the guys would ask The Great Plotnik about his children, he would talk about them with pride. But no one will ask. All they want Plotnik to do is take a good shot, make a good pass, and keep running. And that's just the way Plotnik likes it.