Sports

Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones Deck prompts - What is a sport you love? Tell about it. You hate sports? Tell us about that. Go, ten minutes.

In my younger years, I played softball, volleyball, and tennis as a sport. For fun I skated (both roller and ice), swam, and downhill skied.

As a young person I started to listen to football and baseball on the radio with my grandfather at about age 11. Those were my favorite sports. A football team had their summer camp in the town I grew up in a bit later in my teens. They were my team.

I watched baseball with my mother and she was a loud fan. The Minnesota Twins. She would even be loud at reruns of the game. I am not sure if she knew that those games were replayed though to be fair!

The love of football and baseball were evident in my house growing up. Then when I had my children, hockey became one of my other favorites. My oldest was a hockey fan to the max. He never played other than street hockey, but he is a huge fan. The Minnesota Bulldogs and the Wild.

Hockey was wild when I was going in high school; no helmets or much padding, fights breaking out all of the time and the audience would jump in. No thank you, I did not want to put my kids in hockey until a friend convinced me to go and watch.

Those babies were padded up so much they could hardly move on the ice. Full gear. I let my son join hockey then. My youngest played hockey through the ninth grade and switched to tennis. He started playing hockey again as an adult and continues to play at age 46 and he will be 47 soon.

My youngest is a big Wild fan as is my daughter. She played hockey on a mixed high school college team before there was much girls hockey. When the coach quit, so did she, as there wasn't much else for girls in our community. (Out of time.)

Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones Deck prompts -Do you remember a particular day or time, a moment, when you realized you loved hockey or decided "never again" for cross-country skiing? Throw in sport stars you idealized, looked up to. Who taught you the sport? What did you wear? Fill us in.

When my son wanted to quit hockey to play tennis, I let him without even thinking about it. As an adult he asked me why I let him quit hockey. Hockey was our whole life at the time. It is like a full-time job. It is an expensive sport to play. I was glad to be able to take a break from hockey.

No regrets on my part, but I know my son would've liked to have continued to see where it would have taken him. Now he appears happy to play and to have the wins his team has. He is a bit competitive.

Today, I watch scores on my phone as my teams play. Don't get much tv or in person time with the sports anymore. I don't watch much television at all. I will wear a wild jersey occasionally during the season. I am not a fair-weather fan, so I cheer for my teams no matter what.

My sport stars are always my children and now grandchildren too.

My grandchildren are not hockey players. They are wrestlers and basketball players. A few have played baseball/softball. With one granddaughter as a pitcher who made it through college on a scholarship for pitching. She coaches now.

Another grandson made it to state and nationals with his wrestling. He works with cement now and puts in lots of time working out to stay in shape. We were at wrestling matches for years. Now we are mostly at basketball games with the closest three grandchildren.