Another Thought About Friendship

While we're on yesterday's subject about friendship...last Sunday, Plotnik played in his new(er) basketball pickup game at another local outdoor court. Plot is the new guy -- the others have been playing Sunday mornings at Thomas Alva Plotz School for years and years.

So, in the first game, Plotnik's teammate David, a tall rangy guy with a goatee, went up for the winning jump shot, which he scored. However, when he came down to Earth, he landed on his defender's foot, and broke his ankle. We could hear it snap, and now it was stuck pretty much sideways.

Screaming in pain that his ankle was broken for sure, the issue now was: how do we get a large man down a stairway, over a tall chain link fence and then down a fairly steep enbankment to get to a car to get him to the Emergency Room?

Everyone shouldered this poor man, and tried to help out...welllllll, not everybody. Most of his friends, the guys who knew him, the guys who had played ball with him many times before, hung back at the court. The reason was obvious: if they went to the hospital, they'd miss the next game, and without Big Man on our team, their team now had a chance to win.

It was, shall we say, transparent, and certainly pathetic, but that's what happened.

"Who has a car?" someone yelled. Plotnik looked around. Every damned one of these guys had driven down to the court, but no one volunteered. "DAMN! COME ON! WHO HAS A CAR?" someone else yelled.

So Plotnik volunteered his car, ran to get it, and drove poor David Padilla to the Emergency Room, while the other guys hung around to try and get in another game or two. Only Sam, who plays in Plotnik's Saturday morning game, also drove down to the hospital to make sure everything was OK.

What is the common denominator between Plotnik and Sam? Maybe it's that they're the two oldest guys in the game. They know how serious injuries are the scariest part of playing basketball for decades on concrete.

And where were David Padilla's friends? Playing ball, most likely.

Plotnik hopes that, if he ever gets hurt on the court, it doesn't happen on Sunday.