Tribolum.com Making Light of Things

Played basketball at the neighbourhood court today. A teenager ten years my junior told me that I now seemed slower. He last played with me a year ago. In reaction I told him that it was part and parcel of growing old, but the truth took a little longer to hit me: I was growing old.

They say that white men can’t jump, and that the three-point stripe was invented to help white basketball atheletes keep their job. Asian people can’t jump, and to add insult to injury, we’re nowhere as tall as the rest of them. So most of us Chinese ballers turn to speed and work ethic. That’s how I managed to play ball my three years in Arizona anyway.

Now that age has taken my speed, I’m probably going to become one of those old “uncles” (they’re already calling me that anyway) who shoot the ball in their own odd manner. My only consolation is that Michael Jordan was still whipping up quite the storm at age 40. But I’m no Michael Jordan.

I’m me, and I’m growing older. But I’m not about to trade in my bball skillz for long socks and golf clubs.