Students versus Faculty

The Internet blogosphere was buzzing (not really) about the status of Jaime Flaco for the annual student/faculty basketball game. My August 9 injury and August 12 surgery put the game at about seven and a half months after my last basketball game. As I began running in early March, I harbored crazy fantasies of a Willis Reed-type comeback, of playing a few meaningful minutes (I was at least realistic enough to realize that conditioning, or lack thereof, would be a huge obstacle to my stardom) and leading my team to victory.

But, even with my gradual improvement in conditioning through my consistent running, I knew categorically that it would not be happening.

About a week before the game, with my players seemingly forgetting my fall and winter of wheelchair coaching, crutches, casts and walking boots, I fielded a series of questions probing my status for the upcoming game. The optimist in me says that they were scouting their tough competition, but the realist in me says they were just making conversation.
Game night arrived this past Thursday, and, dressed in slacks and shirt and tie, there was no chance I could make a gametime decision to play. The scene was incredibly ripe for a huge victory for the players: the team won its league, got to the second round of the playoffs, and faced a teachers' team without four or so of its best players. Two top players were out of town, and a talented coworker felt my injury hit close to home and sat out the game. As he watched me agonize through my recovery, he made a firm decision-one that softened as game day approached-to not get injured and therefore not play in the game.
As the game progressed, I found myself sitting first on the bench, serving as a sort of coach for the faculty, jumping up when the teachers scored a big basket or made a key defensive play, to eventually sitting a few rows behind the bench, laughing and joking with friends, and even cheering a bit for the student team.
The students took an early lead, up about seven after five minutes, and went into halftime with a fourteen-point lead. With the teachers living and dying-mostly dying-by the long range jumper (set shot?), the game was over very early. The final score was 67-41.
The bad? It was rough watching others carry the burden I know I could have eased. The trash talk between teams was vague and boring, since I couldn't back up my words on the court. I felt like there was a big party, and I wasn't invited. And I wouldn't be invited for a whole year.
The good? Without my participation, I know that it's impossible to prove that we would have won had I played.
But it's also impossible to prove that we still would have lost had I played...

Teachers versus Students Bball-A Personal History

2005--Students won, by about seven points; I think I can be forgiven for my lack of specific memory. On the first two possessions, I dribbled around a bit before hitting two three-pointers to lead to a palpable buzz in the crowd. A few minutes after my second jumper, I got a long defensive rebound and headed up the right side of the floor on a sprint with a lefthanded dribble. Seeing a defender a few feet in back of the three-point line and maintaining a good rhythm with my dribble, I pulled up from NBA three-point range for a "Why the Heck Not?" shot. All net! My legend had been secured, and the rest of the game was fairly unremarkable. I probably ended up with about 15 points and five or six rebounds.
2006--I had just been hired at the school, and with some stellar players on the teachers' team, including my brother, my playing team was fairly limited. There were no standout moments, but my seven points and three assists helped the teachers solidify a ten point win.
2007--A new school brought with it the most talented student team I've faced in all my games. This team ended up making it to the city semifinals, and their twenty-point win over the teachers was easily earned. In an unofficial vote, I was named MVP of the Teacher Team for my 15+ points, three or four steals, and five or so assists.
2008--The school did not hold a Student versus Teacher game. :(
2009--I truly believe my credibility as basketball coach was strengthened by my 15 or so points, block of a breakaway layup, and no-look pass for a game-changing three-pointer. Teachers won by eight.
2010--Part of this game can be found on Youtube; namely, the end sequence in which the teachers fail to score at the buzzer to overcome a one-point deficit. I scored a ridiculous 16 points in the first-half, including two long three-pointers on the fast break. My second half totals were unimpressive, as I finished with 20 points. The first-half barrage, though, was enough to secure my legend at school, as students I knew and didn't know regaled me with, "Flaco for threeeee!" for weeks after the game.
2011--See May 15, 2011 post

Passing of the Torch?

Two nights ago, the Oklahoma City Thunder came to LA and easily handled the Los Angeles Lakers-102-93. The younger, quicker Thunder wore out the aging Lake Show with 12 fast break points in the third quarter, pretty much ending the game there. The young legs of Russell Westbrook, James Harden, and Kevin Durant were too much against the Lakers Big Three of young Andrew Bynum, aging but still quite effective Pau Gasol, and aging but still All-NBA First Team Kobe Bryant.
Yes, this was just one game. Yes, the Lakers just got younger and quicker with the acquistion of point guard Ramon Sessions. Yes, the Thunder just got a bit older with the recent signing of former Laker Derek Fisher.
Still, one couldn't help but see this game as a passing of the torch, a changing of the guard. The Lakers huffed and puffed with Ron Artest/Metta World Peace, Kobe, and Gasol, while the Thunder sprinted past them with Westbrook, Harden, Durant, and their youthful legs. While Kobe struggled to even get a shot, going an ugly 7-25 in the process, Westbrook and Durant made it look too easy in scoring a combined and smooth 57 points.
It looks to this observer that the Thunder, with an average age of 26.2, have paid their dues in losing to the Lakers two years back in the playoffs and to the Mavericks last year, with both the Lakers and Mavs going on to win the NBA Championship. Even the 26. 2 average age is a bit misleading, as 34 year Nazr Mohammed barely plays, and the team's "Big Four," which includes athletic big man Serge Ibaka, has an average age of 22.5.
Youth has been served so far in the regular season. Look for it to win out in the postseason, too.
Then again, with Kobe Bryant a slightly-different player than a few years ago, but arguably almost as productive, is it lack of talent or aging that has brought the Lakers down? Or are the two qualities one and the same?

"Talkin' Bout My Generation..."

Who were The Who talking about in the song title above? You know and I know that they were referring to those born within three to five years of the band members. I may be a little conservative with my three to five year estimate, but you get the point. When we speak of "my generation" or "our generation," when does this generation end? It seems that when we speak of our generations, we mean the time of our childhood, up through our teenager years, and perhaps into our early twenties. Why do we stop there? In yesterday's class lecture about the impact of America's "Roaring 20s" on the world at large, I began speaking about the classic "Saved by the Bell" episode in which Jessie Spano freaks out with too much studying to do and starts taking speed pills. "I'm so excited...I'm so...SCARED!" (C'mon, you know you remember this episode...) It's a logical connection to make, right, between a formulaic 90s teen sitcom and an American cultural movement of excess?
While this episode aired often in rerun form during my early teenage years, a surprising number of my students, most of whom were born in 1995 and 1996, were familiar with this episode, thanks to TBS and Nick at Nite. The episode aired for the first time in 1990, when I was nine, so can I even claim this Jessie Spano soundbite as part of My Generation?
Well, even those who cannot expand their minds enough to see this connection can see a big reason why we think of Our Generation as that time when we were "young" (what a loaded word). Was the rise of hip hop in the 80s and 90s my generation? Partly, as I was born in 1981 and came of age during the days of NWA, Nas, and the Wu-Tang Clan. But the question is, when did music stop being of my generation? Did the rise of 50 Cent and Kanye West, which took place starting around 2001-2003, coincide with My Generation, or did it come slightly after? Was 9/11 (I was a 20-year-old college sophomore when it happened) the defining event of My Generation? When does another generation wrest control of this event from the preceding generation, in the same way as the Baby Boomers claim November 22, 1963, and April 4, 1968? In our world, youth is king and queen, and the fact that between the forty-year-old and the eighteen-year-old transfixed by the horrific events of September 11, only the latter seems to claim the event as of his generation, tells me enough. Youth is one's entree into generation ownership; the others are just jealous.

If I Could Turn Back Time...

One of the greatest moments, one of my crowning achievements as a person, was the day-I was probably fourteen or so-that I figured out how to freeze time on Sonic the Hedgehog for Sega Genesis. The idea that I could continue playing, continue racking up points with no advancement of time made be positively giddy with adolescent nerdiness.
Many of us, perhaps more males than females (though I have no empirical data to support my thesis), live in this world. This is particularly true as we advance in age, as we move away from the Year Zero that was our last in competitive sports, or last year in college, and on and on.
The team we played in our football playoffs would have beaten anyone that plays today. Today's players aren't as fundamentally sound as they were in my day. These high school freshmen are much smaller than we were as freshmen...
Or the best-the vaguely arrogant, vaguely accusatory towards that "society" that doesn't seem to include the speaker-"You never know about people these days."
In fact, that team from the football playoffs started three linemen who weighed 180, 170, and 160, and would have been killed by many of today's behemoth teams.
Today's players may not be as fundamentally sound, but is it entirely their fault? Who taught them, or didn't teach them, these fundamentals? Who packs the sports highlight shows with dunks and crossovers, pays Allen Iverson to hawk Reeboks through his "fundamental" jukes and ridiculous athleticism?
In fact, the freshmen of today are more or less the freshmen of your day-some tall, some short, some physically mature, some not.
And, in fact, as Hemingway and others have repeated throughout the years, borrowing from Ecclesiastes, "There is nothing new under the sun."
But, man, wasn't it a great feeling to suspend time on the Sega, and isn't it a great feeling, a comforting feeling, albeit temporary, to live like it's 1995 when it's 2012?

Get Up, Stand Up

A few nights back, I went running for the fourth time since my August injury. My PT gave me the go-ahead to start running some three weeks back, and I waited another two weeks or so before attempting to run. The first strides were incredibly awkward, the successive strides slightly so. A sort of stiffness made my strides stilted, though not painful. The feeling is one hard to describe, though I did manage to compare it to running with the left leg being an on-the-ground version of a stilt in a phone conversation with my dad.
My PT has had me doing daily sets of ten of a stretch in which I flex the left foot forward to regain the natural flexion that has been missing since that fateful day some seven months ago. The need to continue with this exercise becomes very apparent as I run like Hop Along Cassidy, the left leg slightly frozen in its flexing.
The first time I ran for about five minutes, and the pain was minimal, the awkwardness more than minimal. As expected, my conditioning was way down, and a few minutes in, I was already feeling cramps. All right, gotta crawl before you can walk (metaphorically).
The second time I ran, I logged about seven minutes, with my left foor still stiff. The third time, seven minutes, and the fourth...well, about twelve minutes combined.
Moving easily that night, I finished a weight workout and decided to run home. Seven minutes into the run, an uneven sidewalk put me onto the asphalt, my phone skittering some twenty feet ahead. Embarassed to say the least, I was at least relieved to see that no one seemed to see my fall, as I had ducked onto a quiet side street.
The fall was in uber slow-motion, and a grunt escaped my throat as I sprawled on the ground. Aw, man, this sucked. The running, the conditioning, was starting to improve, and now a microscopic lift in the sidewalk planted me on my belly.
My phone (those protective cases do work!) was fine, my keys a bit dirty from laying in a quasi-garden on the side of the road. My phone's timer was still running at ten minutes-I figured about two minutes since I fell--and I too decided to, after a minute of walking with my head down, take my licking and keep on ticking. Crossing the street, sure that no one had seen me fall, I quickened my pace.
I lifted my legs-the left one weighed down by a stiff Achilles tendon, the right one soon-to-be scabbed from an unceremonious fall-a bit higher with each step. I started running.
I kept running. The clock was stopped in unison with my running stopping. Fourteen minutes, of which about twelve were running minutes.
I got up. Kept running.

I am 99% (well, maybe like 76%...)

Yesterday was my first physical therapy appointment in a month and a half, and I was initially surprised by the physical therapist's surprise. It took me a moment to remember that there had been such a gap in time since she'd seen me. You don't notice a pot boiling until it's boiling--did I just make up this metaphor? Do you understand it, Dear Reader?
Perhaps some subconscious part of me dressed up for the occasion, as much as a new, fresh Puma tracksuit (red with silver trim, if you're scoring at home) with new brick red Filas can be called "dressing up." As I marched into her examination room with an almost imperceptible hitch in my gait, I remembered the first time I even took one step on that same starkly white floor, and how tried to look at the floor's lines to see if my left foot scraped forward an inch even.
I guess I'm at 75% percent now. 75ish...I have been cleared by my PT to jog. Her go-ahead was tempered with a "Make sure you work on long walks first, then progress maybe in a week or two to jogging." This seems reasonable, a dipping of a toe into the pool.
I have, in some ways, had a sort of plateau in the last few weeks. I walk strongly, with a limp that even those who know my recent history don't notice or barely notice. I have been working out steadily, four or times a week, getting that invigorating before-work workout, doing at least 3/4 of my assigned stretches and exercises.
Now, what? The little things. Balance exercises (standing on my left leg for thirty seconds, doing ten reps). A reverse Fat Joe exercise designed to loosen up the crease in front of the ankle (I lean forward, putting pressure on my left foot until the foot almost comes up off the ground).
My PT ended the appointment by telling me exactly how these stretches and exercises would help me to cut to the hoop, stop on the dead run after chasing down the offensive player, and explode up on a jump shot ("explode" being relative for a guy who is trying to dunk).
Me? Basketball. Playing, not watching. Running the lane and not sitting on the bench, coaching while trying to keep my left side turned away from anyone chasing down a loose ball?
Music to this coach's (and reborn baller's) ears...

Tough Love from My Physical Therapist

"No more wheelchair," she said firmly. "It's not helping. It's hurting."
I couldn't protest too much, as I was ten weeks out from surgery, still unable to walk or even hobble. In a counterintuitive way, what I needed to do was put more pressure on my ailing back leg. In my amateur medical opinion, this extra pressure on the left foot would be analogous to taking off the Band-Aid and letting the cut get some fresh air.
"You have to put your foot down," she said, to which I nodded casually.
"No," she said, her intensity causing me to make eye contact, "You have to put your foot down, give it some exercise, let it readjust to being flat on the ground."
With the foot now having been made into its own pronoun, its own being, I looked at it, wondering if it was an avowed ally or a contrarian enemy.
It started in little ways, I was told--the foot on the ground when I was seated, putting helpful pressure on the long-dormant nerves. And, my physical therapist assured me, I must ditch the wheelchair.
A month into my recovery, I returned to teaching, deciding to jump right back into the school year, not missing any time, not getting a substitute. The four-day week and a teacher's assistant made the teaching manageable, but I was so tired at the end of each trip to the teacher's lounge, to the bathroom, and to the copy room that I decided to ditch the crutches at work. Anyone seeing my reddened, sweating face and hearing my heavy breathing at the end of each "trip" could not have blamed me for calling to claim the wheelchair prescribed by my surgeon.
For another four or five weeks, then, school was navigated by wheelchair, my crutches claimed at the end of each day and used around the house. The relative ease with which I could navigate the school, thanks to eagerly helpful students and colleagues, allowed my armpits to recover and my heart rate to slow down considerably. The burgeoning triceps from all the wheeling were another benefit for the erstwhile-sedentary Jaime.
A day before my physical therapist gave me this tough love and insisted on more crutch-walking, I received a similar talking-to from a friend who told me that the wheelchair was itself a crutch, keeping me from giving more ground exposure to the nerves and muscles of the foot.
"Thanks, Doc," I said sarcastically, but maybe my resistance to losing the wheelchair was more of a mental hangup than a physical one.
A few days later, my wheelchair sits idle, in the school's parking garage in case it's needed again. Though the going is slow, the crutch steps sometimes more like slides than strides, the foot is getting a bit more strength, a bit more feeling.
Thanks, Doc--and I direct this to two people and with no sarcasm--for the tough love.

Taking My Turn on the Karmic Wheel

I usually put the authors of dream interpretation books up there (or down there) with the authors of horoscope books and psychics. This is to say that these people do not take much of a risk in giving generic predictions and information, in that it is nearly impossible to prove them wrong. The Aquarius who is advised in his horoscope that "his high energy may rub others the wrong way" --we can convince ourselves that this is true for everyone, right?--and the psychic visitor both assure themselves that the predictions come from someone who is in some way "trained."

In the same way, let me take my foray into the dream interpretation arena yet again. Being that it is not possible in any way to contradict my "findings," let me begin...

I had a dream that I was coaching my basketball team. As I huddled the team during a timeout, I told the dream to put on a fullcourt press after each basket by our opponents. A player of mine (nameless and faceless while a few of the dream's players are really on this year's team) shook his head and scoffed, saying, "It won't work."

On the first defensive play, an overweight and hefty player--obscured in name and face--refused to stand where I told him to, and proceeded to go down in a heap with an unclear lower body injury upon colliding with an offensive player.

Was the message of this dream that there were conscious decisions that I made that led to my injury? Was it the shoes, an awkward position on my jump shot? Or was it more subtle and seemingly unrelated factors?

As I prepared today to return to a favored barber in an area thirty minutes-plus from my house, I was reminded that I haven't been back since the hours before my injury, twelve and a half weeks ago. Is my hairstyle, picture a slightly slicked-back version of Kevin Costner's Elliott Ness, so difficult that only this barber could have done it? Would a visit to Supercuts have eliminated the opportunity to get hurt? Maybe the universe was only prepared to injure me during that enclosed time period. Maybe a made shot earlier in the game by a teammate would have shortened the game and made it so that my gamewinning and butt-to-couch connecting shot would not have been necessary.

The importance of fate versus personal choice--the neverending debate continues...

Girlish Screams

It was the most girlish scream that this (fairly) deep-voiced man could make. It was my first physical therapy appointment, and, after some rudimentary measurements of my feet in comparison to each other, I began to do some basic stretches.
The stretches consisted of "alphabets"--moving the foot in circles that supposedly mimic the letters of the alphabet--and a 12 to 6 movement. The physical therapist then used an elastic band against which I was to push and then to "pull."
Finally, she had me stand with my left slightly in back of my right, and without the warning I expected, told me, "We're going to take a step."
"Now?"
"Now."
"I don't think I can do it." (I knew I couldn't do it.)
"Yes, you can. The tendon has been repaired, it's regrown, it's ready."
With her flanking my left shoulder, I shuffled forward slowly with my left, then got ready to take the step with the right that would force me to plant on my left.
Then I got ready to take the step with the right that would force me to plant on my left.
Then I got ready...
I literally shook as I tried to reconcile the rupturing of this incredibly important tendon, its betrayal to my body, with the task she was asking/telling me to do.
After about minute of putting barely-detectable pressure on the left foot, I scraped forward, letting out a high-pitched, girlie noise as I felt that my left couldn't support me. I lunged forward, grabbing awkwardly onto a cabinet and leaning against her shoulder.
Thankfully, every step won't be this hard.
Right?

The Long Road Back

"Bring a left shoe next time I see you," my orthopedist repeated, fairly cryptically, as I exited his office two weeks ago. Everything in my recovery having gone according to plan up until that time, he told me that my next appointment would allow me to walk out of his office with a real left shoe, not a boot.
His "left shoe" comment was enough to get me excited and nervous upon entering his office for yesterday's appointment. I'd told anyone who asked (and some who didn't) that the next time they'd see me, I'd be at least hobbling and wearing a left shoe for the first time since my surgery eight weeks before. I even told a few people that the wheelchair that had been helping me navigate the hallways and my classroom at school was going to be collecting dust very soon, maybe even in a few days.
Shoot, I even flirted with the idea of a "I Can Walk Again" party at my apartment that would have been tonight. The idea of me, even a hobbling me, being unable to play host in any meaningful way, put an end to the party idea, but anything was possible as I sat on the fresh sheet, waiting for Dr. Owen.
With a clinical efficiency that somehow is teamed with an incredibly-empathetic bedside manner, he retrieved the thick green Adidas shoe I'd brought ("Bring something substantial for your left shoe," he'd said last time) and loosened the laces as much as possible.
It must have taken two minutes for me to have the confidence to pull the laces and shoe tight over my foot, a bit of a surreal experience after so much buildup. The feel of the shoe was not so much uncomfortable as foreign.
With a flourish, I hopped off my chair to take my first step, felt a twinge of nerves, and followed the doctor's advice--"Use the crutches if you want."
With a stumble and a slight drag of the left foot, the foot, bootless, made contact with the earth and moved forward ever so slightly. It felt good and it felt very weird.
Telling me that my surgical wound was healing nicely and complimenting me on my progress, Doc told me that I was technically freed from the crutches, but they were to be used if needed.
They are needed. As Doc stepped out to get some paperwork and set up my first physical therapy appointment, I tried out my new gait in the office and right outside, maniacally "walking" back and forth in an area about eight feet by eight feet, pacing like an expectant father. A few tiny attempts told me that the crutches were necessary for any positive movements.
In the first few steps, and the halting and frustrating ones I've taken today, it is clear that my left foot is, at this time, not committed mentally or physically to moving forward on its own. Though I've stood lightly on both feet a few times, always with a closeby wall or grip for insurance, pushing off my left foot with its rebuilt Achilles tendon is not in the cards at this time.
Which made it all the more ironic when Doc Owen, as far as I know not a reader of this blog, told me to let the physical therapists know about my goals. "The therapists need to know if it's a matter of 'I want to just be able to walk to the store with no trouble' versus 'I wanna be able to dunk a basketball,' so they can create the right rehab program," he said.
Without replying, I thought to myself how badly I want to dunk a basketball. The thought of that first dunk, though, right now seems as alien as me giving birth.
My foot doesn't want to push off. My foot can't push off. This year's Students versus Faculty Game (something I take quite seriously) is set for February and already has been ruled out. My calf has atrophied to scary proportions. An accidental and light whack of the tip of my left shoe against a chair leg smarts for a good two minutes.
Here I am, deeply immersed in the conflict of this developing story. Everything is set for the buildup of drama.
I just don't have the happy ending in sight.

The Ageless Wonders

Many a priest was there who earned the nickname "Father What-a-Waste" from my female college classmates. The Catholic university had many priests as professors--many of them who were barely older than the students, many who just seemed that young.
The priests, highly-educated, cultured, and well-spoken, were fawned over by the girls, with a big part of the priests' appeal resting in the fact that they were untouchable and unattainable-truly "playing hard to get."
I remember my amazement that a favorite priest of mine-an important part of my formative years-was forty years old when he'd taught me a few years before in a creative writing course. I would have sworn before a jury that he was no older than 30 at that time.
The priests themselves were known to joke that it was the lack of a family and its responsibilities that made them appear so young. The vigorous eighty-something priest from Colombia who traveled there at least three times a year to visit family and take his annual trip to the family farm to help with the harvest was one shining example of this longevity.
So too was the fifty-something who had traveled to Los Angeles to participate every marathon since its inception in 1984.
The chaplain for the baseball team who regularly attended practice and shagged fly balls (albeit it not at Vince Coleman speed) when the team was short on players? Fifty-two without a noticeable gray hair.
Forget Ponce de Leon and Botox-the priests are the ones who have the answers to The Fountain of Youth.

I Almost Forgot

I almost forgot that I needed to hop to the bathroom, at 3am or so last night, fresh off a dream where I was running sprints at a long-ago basketball practice that never happened.




I almost forgot that the back of my leg has been busted and crafted back together when my friend screamed at the tv after an amazing run by his team's running back. I wanted to run to find out what happened.





I almost forgot that the ten minutes it took to get ready for a date now takes thirty.





I almost forgot that food can be poured or cooked at one location and then carried to another. It does need to be eaten in the same place it was dispensed, while I'm leaning against the sink or the kitchen counter.





I almost forgot. But only for a split second.

Remember When

On one of the latter episodes of "The Sopranos," Tony Soprano and his lieutenant, Paulie "Walnuts" Gualtieri, take a trip to Florida to escape police pressure in Jersey. As the two need to remain anonymous on their escape from the law,Tony continues to worry about his partner's talkativeness, as Paulie chats up bellhops, businessmen, and other strangers. When Paulie tells stories about him and Tony engaging in some not so-legal behaviors to some young women they are dining with, Tony gives Paulie the evil eye and excuses himself from the table, making the cryptic remark that " 'Remember when' is the lowest form of conversation."

If Tony is a sage, then I think that the 30s are the start of a downward spiral. You might even argue that the end of college is the beginning of this downward spiral, as the days pining for very little responsibility, very little accountability, and an astonishing amount of independence often start hours after graduation.
In an oxymoronic way, my good friends and I started missing the carefree college life before we graduated. Aware that college was but a four-year stop, a vacation of sorts in the middle of a working life, we reminded ourselves on a regular basis, especially during senior year, to savor this time. How do you do savor something? Is it possible to actively do this?
An extreme example of "Remember when" inhibiting one's adult growth is Uncle Rico of "Napoleon Dynamite." A thirtysomething groveling for work and seeming to live out of a van that would make Matt Foley proud, Rico is not above mooching steaks off Napoleon's family and hawking questionable Tupperware to naive buyers. Sneaking peeks at his flexed biceps whenever he can, Rico is stuck in 1982. While sitting outside with his nephew showing off his quarterback's arm, Rico talks about his coach's inability to put him in during the fourth quarter of a key high school game.
"We coulda won state that year if he'd played me," Rico says, gazing into nothing and speaking more to himself than to his nephew.
In case anyone doubts his prowess, Rico carries around a tape of himself, some twenty years after high school, dropping back and throwing the football. Ready to show the video at the slighest show of interest (or disinterest, in his nephews' case), Rico is an easy target as a joke.
It has been said that behind every joke, there is a seed of truth. We all know our own Uncle Ricos.
Just don't call me "Rico Flaco."

Steppin Out

"You mean like walk walk?" I asked the doctor, making sure that when he told me to walk, he meant to like, you know, walk. My left foot had not touched the ground in six weeks and approximately three hours, and the thought of putting pressure on the foot, even when ensconced in a walking boot, was enough to make the timid six-year-old in me come out.
Yes, he meant walk. Pulling the Band-Aid off all at once, I took the awkward first step as if there was a fly under my boot that I didn't want to crush...success!
No crushed Achilles. No shooting pain. The feel of the first step was like that first sip of cold water on a hot day-no, I'm playin, this was a small step for the body, and a giant step for the psyche. The feel was of those slippery steps taken in Dad's "boats," those penny loafers that sat idle some days when he wore the dress shoes with the shoelaces.
"Just heel to toe, heel to toe," said the doctor patiently, practiced enough even as a youngish orthopedist to know that despite my fears, I would be all right. His comfort lay in the repetition of heel to toe, mine in the fact that he was comfortable.
I will be in the walking boot for two weeks, then I have a Shoe Appointment.
"Bring the left shoe with you next time," the doctor said at least three times. "We're gonna fit you, and you'll be walking in a shoe in a few weeks. Hobbling, I should say."
In three weeks, physical therapy begins, then some other followup appointments, and then...a long road ahead, I know.
Is it too corny to say that I have to take it one step at a time?
Speaking of corny, I held up my left foot today, sporting some new Chuck Taylor(s) after weeks of rocking the infamous Polo shoe that was on my foot when the Achilles was ruptured.
"Hey, look," I said, pausing for emphasis, "I got new shoe. Get it? Singular?"
The pitying laughter of the class told me that, wonder of all wonders, I was now That Guy. The teacher who made jokes so corny that students felt sorry for him. The teacher we all had, the sophomore computer teacher I had some fourteen years ago.
Time flies when you're telling shoe jokes...