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Youth Movement

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There was a great boon delivered to the blogging world this week. We in the unpaid, time-rich, opinionator class love politics, sports, and lambasting parents for their child rearing choices. With a happy crash, all these areas of interest met in one New York Times article about sports development programs for toddlers.

Apparently pre-school is not too early to get the kiddies ready to shine on fields of glory.

Parents are supposed to want to give their children a good start towards some great future achievement. It’s the specific expectation of creating a young Einstein or second coming of Joe Montana that is so laughable. Remember “Baby Mozart”?

I admit I did brain building exercises with my young’un, although mostly that involved talking and reading to him at an early age – well before he was able to answer. Speaking into the silence was also my business at the time, so it came naturally to me. We did some toddler swimming. Had there been a brawn building program, I might have gone for that too.

I suspect a day will come when this latest kind of over-the-top attention is not a big deal – maybe after the IFL (Infant Hockey League) gets a few seasons under the strap of it’s bright blue Scooby-Doo suspenders.

Other leagues will doubtless follow, along with live game day coverage on PSSN (Pre School Sports Network) and baby baseball fantasy pools. And when they are old, today’s children will remember how the preschool sports movement was immortalized on film.

Like legendary Footsie Ball coach Hoot Rocker’s famous speech to the Nottering Dome Day Care pre-walker team at halftime of their 2011 struggle against heavily favored Happy Camper Academy. Rocker was trying to salvage some dignity after an atrocious first half performance by his squad, which took up residence on the 50 foot line and hardly moved in either direction for 30 minutes.

The scene opens inside the Nottering Dome changing and nursing care area. The players are seated on their mats, character blankets draped over their sholders, their oversized heads wobbling on pencil thin necks or resting on their well padded shoulders.

The door pushes open and Rocker is wheeled in by two underpaid attendants. He weighs 400 pounds and can’t stand upright for more than ten minutes at a time. They players look at Rocker, for they are drawn to faces. Some offer him their nook, for he looks like he needs some kind of comfort. Rocker’s dark-circled eyes range over the toddlers for a full moment of unbroken silence. Then, quietly, as if the contest didn’t matter to him, he speaks.

ROCKER: Well, boys and girls, I haven’t a thing to say, and I know most of you can’t talk yet, so … there’s not much point in giving you a rousing speech. We had a tough go of it out there. They came ready for playtime. You came ready for naptime … each and every one of you.

(He tries to smile.)

I guess we just can’t expect to win ‘em all.

(Rocker pauses and says this quietly).

I’m going to tell you something I’ve kept to myself for years — None of you ever knew Bobby Bink. It was long before your time. But you know what a tradition he is here at Nottering Dome Day Care. Bobby Bink could build with blocks. Oh, he built. He made a tower that was twice as tall as me, and that was back when I could stand up and he couldn’t. And it was a tower just like that … a tower where he had somehow managed to perch Mrs. Plotsky’s coffee cup on the very top block … that fell over on him one day. The cup came crashing down and left a bruise above Bobby Bink’s left eyebrow. And it was that bruise that made his mommy and daddy take him out of Nottering Dome. It broke our hearts but they took him and enrolled him at West Point, thinking it would give him a shot at being chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

Bink never got that job. He eventually became a Congressman. A Congressman, boys and girls – a small cog in the big machine, doomed to beg endlessly for money and praise. That’s not the kind of leader we launch here at Nottering Dome. I still remember the day they carried him out in his backwards facing car seat. I can still see his eyes. Bink didn’t want to go, I assure you.

(There is gentle, faraway look in his eyes as he recalls the boy’s words).

And the last thing he said to me — “Rock,” he said – “sometime, when the team is up to it’s diapers in yuck and the elastic is just not holding things in – tell them something for me, will ya? Tell ‘em to go out there with all they got and win one … just one … for the Binkie.

(Knute’s eyes become misty and his voice is unsteady as he finishes).

I don’t know where I’ll be then, Rock”, he said – “but I’m sure I’ll hear about it. And I’ll gum an Animal Cracker for you and the team.”

There is a hushed stillness as Rocker and the crowd of toddlers look at each other. Some of the youth chew their blankets. An eye is poked. There’s some soft crying, then a hush. In the midst of this tense silence, Rocker quietly says “Alright,” to the men beside him, and his chair is wheeled slowly out of the room.

Toddler #12: Aga toota goop? Phththththththth.

With a single yowl, the players throw off their blankets and rush, on hands and chubby knees, through the doorway, for a play date with destiny.

I hope I live long enough to see that film.

Have you ever delivered or received a pep talk?

105 thoughts on “Youth Movement”

  1. Morning all!

    I was never into team sports (or any sport for that matter) so I can’t recall that I’ve ever been on the receiving end of a pep talk. The debate/interp coach never did pep talks as I recall and I’m not sure that notes after dress rehearsal count as pep either!

    But as the mother of a gymnast, there has been plenty of little individual pep talks, mostly the “just have fun” kind before a meet or the “coaches have bad days too” kind after a hard practice.

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  2. Rise and Shine Babooners:

    Come on. You can do it. You can get out of bed. I know you can do it. You’ve done it your entire life every morning, even in December when there is not enough light. Use the Full Spectrum light for a half an hour, 18″ from your eyes and you’ll feel so much better.

    Other pep talk topics:

    You can go in the potty like Daddy.
    You’ll get the hang of the bicycle when you feel what balance is like.
    (At work) I think you can learn to manage your emotions and behavior if you are willing to do the work.

    Off to the day. C’mon. You can face the day!

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  3. o-kaaaayy.
    i’ve given pep talks to goats – Dodger, Alba, and recently Sugar. i don’t remember being on the receiving end – not that i don’t need at least one pep talk a day for self improvement! i do talk to myself a lot – “you can do this – you can blah, blah, blah” kind of like Old Blevins.

    a good and gracious morning to You All
    i hear Sugar may be coming back today – i will do my best to make her happy, comfortable and accessible to Mr. T. i will. i can do it. blah, blah, blah

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      1. completely OT (except it involves goats, which are always on topic)-Friend of a friend raises champion show bunnies. She decorates their barn and plays Christmas music for them at this time of year. Was wondering if you decorate your goat accomodations and if so, with what? I’m thinking one of those nice barbed wire wreathes would be good, but what could you use for a ribbon that they would not consume?

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    2. Knew it right away – the spelling was too accurate and the content insufficiently single-minded to be posted by T.

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  4. Played and coached. Did hear a memorable pep talk or two. Did not give that much of a pep talk, since I never coached higher than grade 9 and do believe the purpose of sports at that age is something other than “win one for Bink.”
    Directed plays and did give pep talks of a sort, much like my coaching talks, about what we want to accomplish, these are the spots we want to hit, this is about fun of meeting a challenge, learning, and growing trogether, picking each other up.

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  5. The other topic of the day, about learning and small childdren is too too much into the world I cared about and lived in for a career of 44 years. Whew, way too much to say which you will not want to hear and this is not the point in my life to go on about this, if there ever was. There is no doubt at all that parents are the teacher that matters the most. The proof of that is not in the parents who do it right but in the ones who do it wrong, especially in terms of the two areas that are ALL for making school work, language and “general brain and learning skills,” a hard thing to name. A part of the second is the time kids spend with parents and other adults, hopefully some old folks, and the time they spend on their own and with other kids of a wide set of ages. I think the huge gap in the lives of children today is that second part. Children spend way too much time under adult supervision. I think I have offended before on here with statements like this, so please take my remarks as the ravings of a doddering old man who could most certainly be wrong. I do not thing youth sports, scouting, and arts programs are bad; I think they are good except when they take away all other free time from children. Would love to hear from Sioux Falls on this topic.
    I used to teach and run a gifted program. I would meet with parents and we would try to identify things to do with kids (places to go, books and media to use, etc.) to keep their minds stimulated and enrich and diversify the stimuli. Here was the key: almost everything we came up with almost every parent was doing. Back then in NE MN we did not name youth sports and arts programs because they did not exist, but today they would. S0 are gifted kids gifted because they inherit genes or are they gifted because their parents do such things with their kids? Both of course.
    A side note: we tried to expose our kids to a wide range of arts of different genres, to different sorts of cultures, and people, etc. A key part of the arts one was having our kids listen to MPR. Two results of that: 1) my two children have always listened to a wide range of music, especially my son, who seeks out and collects almost every sort and genre of music. When we go to visit I love just scanning his CD’s to see the range. Do I have to say that for much of that I take credit only for turning on Classical MPR but also The Morning Show.” 2) my grandchildren have always gone to sleep listening to MPR and their parents play a range of music in the house. Hopefully, it is being passed on without JEP, DC, and MP choosing the music for them/us.
    Enough I know.
    For those who want to know: my wife turned a corner yesterday from what happened to her on Thanksgiving Day. She did not sleep 2o yesterday, is her bright and funny self, etc. and wanted to go out to B & N, which we did. Some other issues we have yet to see about.

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    2. hooray. glad to hear she turned the corner.
      my kids are a combination of thingsas are all kids i am sure. the second family is different from the first. the first we had no money and the time i spent running off to china was a bad combination for commitment to coaching etc. the arts were important and my son loved music and arts but he also had an engineer brain in there somewhere, loved math challanges on car trips and was a stat man (i had to ask for time outs from his stat resessitations on car trips, my daughter was a content human no matter what. walk int oa room kick off her shoes stick her thumb in her mouth and find contentment, my son is driven and passionate and my daughter is happy no matter what, next family we went to everything, childrens theater scinece museum walker art instature orchestra hall spco guthrie and participated in baseball basketball football hockey soccer cello trumpet guitar vocal groups theater groups swimming karate painting and sculpting and these kids are more apt to sit and veg out in front of the video and tv than the ones who were not offered the options growing up. read a book, one of the three in the seconfd family lives in books and writes like a published child prodigy, the other write in block letters and cant express in other than grunts. the reality is they will choose their own paths and all we can do is offer, prod, make availabel the options they have to choose from and let them do the best they can along the way.
      i have been a coach for about the last 7 or 8 years now and it is fun to help the kids get the big picture of what we are doing here. that is all a motovational talk is… the ability to see the picture ehind the picture. the world kind of walks along doing that turtle version of the ho de do ho de do approach on life and the motvational talk just kind of acts as a shock therapy treatment to wake up the sleepy. i was in amway a lifetime ago and learned to love al that motovational stuff. the ability to crank yourself up is a ewonderful ability to be able to call on. i still listen to thse speakers whenever i can. i heard zig ziggler
      (a motovational superstar of the past) was on stage in minneapolis this last year and he was helped by his duaghter to get through the program with his brain starting to fade. i guess it was 1980 when i was listening to and going to his seminars. it reminded me of the old man in night of the iguana that is working on his poem at age 97 and when he completes it he is complete and he gives himself the ok to die. i love those guys and the ability it offers to get yourself aimed at the target rather than meandering kinda sorta in that general direction way we seem to do if not redirected and prodded. i’m going for it today.

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    3. Mine is the child who lives in books-history, science, fantasy. Fie on realism says he, I get enough of that in school! He does want to make a trip to Fort Ticonderoga some day, as he thinks it looks sooooo cool.

      Thanks for saying what you did about parents, Clyde. Our school is once again in the throes of changing things around in the name of improved educational methods. I have self-imposed rant restraint here, so will let it go at that.

      I’ve pretty much figured out by now that it is mostly up to me and the public library at this point. My heart goes out to the teachers-I think most of them went into the profession for one thing and have gotten something completely different. I suspect the same can be said of much of the health care profession.

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  6. Good morning and I want you to go all out today!

    I was barely good enough to make the varsity track team in high school and there weren’t any pep talks because track isn’t a team sport. I helped a little with youth sports where the closest I came to a pep talk was attempts to encourage some of the players, my daughters, to at least make some kind of an effort to participate.

    I was suprised when one daughter spent one whole year as a player on the high school girls hockey team. She thought it was funny when she was asked in college if she wanted to try out for hockey when someone noticed that she was wearing her hockey sweat shirt from high school.

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  7. I don’t see why we have to wait for birth to develop young athletes. After a little shouting and some finger pressure on the womb, any newborn could come into this world with a good idea of how the pick and roll works and how a wide receiver can find seams in the coverage. I have visions of little tennis rackets for ankle biters, possibly with a pacifier installed on the grip to calm them during lulls in the match.

    As for pep speeches, I only remember giving one. I headed up the night crew at my dad’s stuffed toy factory one year when I came home on summer break in my college career. The only clear memory I have of that summer was conversations with a leggy German farm girl from near Chaska who got so bombed one night that she acquired something like an allergy to alcohol. She spent weeks experimenting, trying to find a way to get drunk in spite of her intolerance, finally learning that if she drank beer fast enough through a straw she could get high before throwing up. I was impressed with her dedication to dissipation.

    Dad told me we had to increase the productivity of the night staff, so I called a meeting and gave a speech. There was a thunderstorm going outside, which caused hordes of salamanders to come in the factory, and we could hear them sliding along the floor as I talked. I had an attack of my stage fright as I told the “girls” to work harder, a fit of terror that had nothing to do with what I was talking about. Seeing me shaking and hearing the fear in my voice, they all got terrified and decided that I was that upset with them. They worked the next several days with ferocious intensity. So my one motivational talk was a huge success. Tony Robbins, stand aside!

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      1. I never thought to interview one of those salamanders. We had a wet summer. All I know was when the skies would really cut loose the salamanders migrated into Animal Fair. Their impact on the night crew (all women except for moi) was not good.

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    2. My daughter dated a boy whose mother worked at Animal Fair although I’m sure long after your college days. We got a huge stuffed pig from there to send to my cousin’s son who was a pig fancier at the time. Shall I continue to see how many layers of relationship I can inflict on you? I believe I have achieved something under 6 degrees of separation between us though. The cousin’s son was just a side trip. (Is that second cousin or first once removed or something else?)

      Did Animal Fair ever make a commemorative stuffed salamander?

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      1. That’s cool! Are we now related like at the seventh degree level? I don’t know what you mean by your cousin’s son being a “side trip.” Does that mean he wasn’t planned but resulted from a trip to the sauna following schnapps?

        I don’t think they ever made a stuffed salamander, but then I didn’t think they made a stuffed pig!

        We had a gazillion mice in that building. One of my tasks was going around each evening with poison, laying down pounds of it. I called it “feeding the livestock.”

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      2. I just meant that the reference to him didn’t fit in to the degrees of separation part of the comment. They live in Oklahoma and while I’ve never seen a sauna down there, schnapps or something similar may very well have been involved in the procreative process. ;-D

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      3. Animal Fair did make a great big polar bear! She still sits in my bedroom — her name is Kate (Klondike Kate, that is). SO does that make me 6 degrees or less???

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  8. My usual role with friends is a listener; a lot of nodding and “mm-hmms”, but occasionally I’m called upon to give a pep talk, especially about their writing. There are a couple who need encouragement: one of whom hasn’t written in years and is afraid to start (and whose brain helpfully concocts all sorts of problems to keep her from doing so), and another who feels discouraged about supposedly not living up to her “potential” (my response is often, “you’re not dead yet, are you?”). The thing that’s discouraging about encouraging is when it doesn’t seem to make a difference, when the person you’re trying to pep gets enthusiastic for a short time and then collapses back into torpor. But, I learned from another friend who used to be an English professor that you never know when things will click in someone’s mind and suddenly they’ll get what you’ve been trying to tell them. It’s happened to me, so I have hopes for my friends and their books (which WILL be dedicated to me, at least in part, or else!)

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  9. Dale,
    Being the mean-spirited person that I am rather than compliment you on another well-written piece, I am going to mock a spelling/typing editing error. You noted that the players were willing to share their nooks with the coach. While it is funny to think of the giant coach in a tiny nook, I thing the wee ones were more likely to be willing to share their Nuks.

    Now go out there and show Strunk and White what you’re made of!

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    1. One of my favorite town names in the US, where a friend of mine was school principal: Naknek, AK, a town where they use an airplane to fly the students just a mile, across the river until it freezes.

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    2. Thanks for the correction, Beth-Ann. I’m flattered that you pay such close attention.
      I might have brought in the Stooges and written it this way:

      Three toddlers named Larry, Curly and Moe offered him their nyuck, nyuck, nyucks.

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      2. Every time Naknek AK called, one of the people in the office would tell me that I had a call from the three stooges. It had to be explained to me because, and this will put my manhood in question, I hate the stooges.

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      8. Yep, Clyde is right. My wife doesn’t like the Stooges either…
        But how about the Marx Brothers, Clyde? Are they universally accepted?

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      9. The Marx Bros. are a wholly different animal than the Stooges. At least in my book. I’d take Groucho, Harpo, Chico and Zeppo over Larry, Moe and Curly any day. Especially Harpo.

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      10. Don’t think Marx Bros humor is gender-related. They are such a mix of low brow and sophisticated maybe everyone finds something.

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  10. OT: a story my wife heard yesterday from one of the mall store clerks with whom she has a close relationship (everybody does immediatley love my wife), This woman was getting late for work and had no clean panties. So she hand-washed a pair and then turned on the oven and hung them on the partly-open oven door. As she was showering, the panties fell onto the oven heating element and caught on fire. When she smelled it, she turned off the oven, shut the door, and called 911. The dispatcher wanted to know exactly what was burning. So she had to say, “Well, I had a fire in my underpants.”

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    1. Thanks so much for that, Clyde (and Sandra).

      I haven’t even read the full post for the day, the window just opened to your OT post first. What a way to start the day!

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      1. I have referred to her on here as Sandra Marguerite. But she is Sandy to everyone in the world but me. Hates being called Sandra, except by me, likes it by me. I add the Marguerite in reference to her in dealing with pain and illness because her mother’s name was Marguerite, whom we called Mugs, who was a hero of dealing with severe pain and the limitations of very bad arthrits. This is related to Dale’s topic for the day: my wife duplicated her mother’s handicapped mannerism. For instance, for many years my wife would use her hip to close the refrigerator door when she had nothing in her hands. When my wife raised her arm to get something out of a high cupboard, she would hold the other hand under her elbow because her mother had to use the other hand to raise her arm. She slowly lost those mannerisms, but not Mugs’s iron will and passive independence.

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      2. Good for Sandy (and Mugs). Funny story about what you learn. We knew a family once, in which the mother had had some sort of facial operation in which a nerve was somehow cut, leaving her with a very lopsided smile.

        Shortly after that, she had a baby girl. By the time she was 2 the little girl had a decidedly lop-sided smile too. Neurologists could find no reason for it, and by the time she was in junior high, they were able to “teach” her to have a balanced smile.

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  11. NPR had a tornado story a few years ago that I sort of remember. A tornado cut through an Oklahoma farming area. One family was spared but the cyclone decimated the neighbors’ property, so they ran next door to help. An older farm wife was stuck in a bunch of debris, so they had to help her out. Everyone helping her was mortified to see that the storm had caught her while she was wearing dirty underpants.

    After that, the wife of the helping family put aside a brand new set of panties that she only put on when a tornado was expected. In that family it was understood that there wasn’t much to worry about from most storms, but if Mama was wearing her “storm drawers,” it was time to head for the basement.

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    1. my dad one trip on the way home from up north about 15 years ago got within the city limits and reached over to put his seatbelt on. i asked him what that was all about, he said he had heard that 90% of all accident shappen with in 20 miles of home so he had better buckle up. i love sideways thought patterns.

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    2. I thought I saw Gracie Allen’s spirit in a new comedienne, Kristen Schaal. She is one of the authors of the Sexy Sex book. You might want to look at her interview this summer with David Letterman on YouTube.

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      4. George Burns said that she did not really understand at first, that he had to explain to her what and how what he wrote for her was funny and how to deliver and pause and hold tht look. But because she was such a good actress, she learned to do it, but she could never ad lib, so he could not then ad lib, which means he had to learn to do his facial expressions and poses and uses pauses. If he had not lived so long after her, I doubt we would know how funny he was.

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  12. I’ve never been in any kind of position to deliver a pep talk but I definitely could use one! Thanks, Jacque – your’s was just what I needed. Your’s too, Crow Girl!

    I have had to use encouraging speeches with someone at work. This person has a big job and often feels as though he’s swimming upstream. He’s achieving great things in southern Minnesota and I hope he doesn’t burn out.

    I’ve never been athletic at all. I’ve always been clumsy and accident-prone. I was always last to be chosen for a team when I attempted to play any sport at any age. I think many people who have been near-sighted since they were very young (6) and who enjoy braiding the stems of dandelions or violets together, and/or feel the need to read “Charlotte’s Web” a third time, on the playing field, will understand some of my issues… I’m so glad my parents didn’t feel it was necessary to push me toward early athleticism. Oh dear. I’m feeling a sense of compassion for these kids!

    Oh – my tea bag this morning says, “Your life is based on the capacity of energy in you, not outside of you.”

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    1. I hear you on the athletics.

      If you grew up as I did in a small town, athletic prowess was all, music and academics, um, no, not so much.

      Didn’t get around to saying so last week, but I stand in awe of your hosting Thanksgiving. Hope it went well!

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      1. Thanks! There was one moment when I thought, longingly, of the Trail, and of your recent suggestion to me to look at some object and imagine you rolling your eyes at me… it worked well! Thanks! 🙂

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  13. I once gave a pep talk to a group of high risk mothers who lived in a residential
    center while trying to bond with their babies. The lesson was how to say “No”
    and not get creamed. I explained that giving an immediate compliment to the
    person for even asking for something was the best way to go. I had the girls practice by going around the circle with each asking the next for a favor, then saying, “No, but thank you for asking”. The next week, a girl with a very low IQ excitedly ran up to me exclaiming, “I did it!! I did it!!!” She then described walking downtown when a man pulled up in his car and asked her if she’d like to fuck. She was so proud of herself for saying, “No, but thanks for asking”. I still laugh remembering this.

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  14. it to the point of being ridiculous. my oldest son grew up in edina and when we went to the hockey rink by my house at age 5 the kids at the warming house wanted to know what team my son was on. (he had on the gear ans was wanting to screw around and learn the game) he told them he wasn’t on a team yet and he was jst getting started and they told him he was way tooo late and should have started a couple years agohe was so far behind he would never catch up. it reminded me of my one kid who had a sppech thing where they would say blue and the bl part of it sounded wet and fluttery. all words that started that way sounded disticntly him. teachers were freaked out about it age 3 or so and i told them to relax. if he was still fdoing it when he was 17 we would deal with it. sadly one day it did dissappear. i don’t think the kids who move here from europe at age 16 surprise the coaches with their natural ability and get special attention to discover the subtle nuances of the sport that is foreign to them. where the 5 year old that can’t skate backwards or run the 4o yard dash in under 15 secinds is banished forever. its lucky the stupid parents are only doing this with atheletic skills. imagine if they were doing this and havign kids bomb out on science or business or art at age 6 or 7 and scarring them deeply enought o make them think they were not fit for business because they couldn’t do spread sheets in pre school. i am sure there are gifted nmath brains who would make the a team but we don’t think of these guys as the a team and the rest being relegated tot he bench.

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    1. Our schools are designed primarily to sort kids out, to know who is #1 and who is # bottom at grauation. And we think any student who does not advance at the assigend pace is a failure. So little kids who do not get math on time are sent the message sublimally, which thet get quickly, that they are no good at math. My 7-year-old granddaughter has a very good math mind, analytical and very quick intuitive problem solver. But the only question is how quickly she can do time tests. Sign. I know; it’s a lost cause to argue this now. Sigh.

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  15. I could use a pep talk today. I’m not ready to follow Tim’s example and “go for it”. I didn’t get much sleep last night. I should have know that reading the conclusion of the terribly sad story that Louise Erdrich presents in her book “Shadow Tag” would not be a good thing to do at bed time.

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    1. Oooh… thanks for the heads’ up. I’m about half way through Shadow Tag right now! I will not read it at bedtime tonight!

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  16. louise is a master of the sad story. i love reading her stuff because she is such a survivor. i got to meet her at an event at her bookstore in kenwood a year ago and she is a delight. be thankful those are not the realities of your life and slepp on how to make it possible for those who live that type od sorry story can have a shot at improving it. naps are good too

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    1. Tim, thanks for the pep talk and advice about taking a nap. I also am impressed by Louise Erdrich’s writing and look forward reading some of her other books.

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      2. ok, tim-here is your opportunity to give another pep talk.

        I just put in the first disc of For Whom AND I have a machine knitting marathon ahead of me from now until Monday (yes, I can do both at once-I am counting on it)

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      4. I have an audiobook of For Whom as well, read by Campbell Scott. If you have the same one I have, it’s not very tough, only 14 discs. Campbell Scott has a nice voice, and it goes quickly.

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      8. I just finished it yesterday. Somehow, the smutty parts don’t seem smutty, but I should probably save this for the mtg. Clyde, you posted something about Hemingway a couple of weeks ago that I thought would be a great kick-off for our discussion when it happens… will try to find.

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  17. “OK, folks, this dance looks harder than it really is if we break it down. The rhythm will be: Slow Slow Quick-Quick Slow; footwork is: Right, Left, Right-Left Right. Ready? Weight on your left foot, right foot free… Hmmm, the Other Right foot. 1, 2, ready, Go!”

    Other than teaching folk dance, I can only think of one-on-one pep talks to every person I’ve ever gotten close to. Guess I’m sort of an ad hoc counselor, like many of you no doubt are too.

    Must go, will read the last half later.

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  18. I don’t really remember any pep talks, more inspirational rants. My band directors only wanted us to stay in line while marching and play the right notes. There wasn’t much pep involved at all. I did play soccer for many years (not very competitively though), but the talks were more strategic than peppy. Maybe if I had played varsity sports I’d have had more talks, but I was (and still am) a music geek. Musicians don’t need a lot of pep talks, haha, just direction.

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  19. While sports are of course given lots of attention in my home town, I am happy to report that, at least when I was in school, it was just as important how well the band and choir did at competitions. Anybody ever march in the Tri-State Band Festival in Luverne? It’s a big deal. Sports are given far too much attention an resources in the place I live now.

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    1. I don’t remember that one, but I do recall that our band did well in competition (we were a “wind ensemble”…the foofy name helped, no doubt) – we went to a few, but I don’t remember Luverne. We were a “city” high school, so mostly we competed against the suburbs (it was always satisfying to beat the musical tar out of the snooty bands with matching snazzy uniforms…).

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    2. Me, me, me! 1969 to 1971. Our band usually won at that point in time.

      (LeMars Community High School. Eins, zwei, drei, vier)

      In October in Eden Prairie, where I now live, you can go to the Marching Band Festival. It is all half-time, no football. LOVE it. Nothing but marching bands.

      Sigh.

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      1. I will admit to a weakness for watching Sousaphones snap back and forth in time to a good 2/4 or 4/4 beat rat-a-tat-tatted out by a sharp snare drum. All half-time, no football, sounds like fun.

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      3. I love that festival! My older brother was in our marching band when they still did field shows and they went there and played. We went to watch and it was so fun! By the time I joined the marching band, our director no longer wanted to do field shows, only parades. I always felt like I missed out on stuff because of that.

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  20. Afternoon…

    Busy day so far; learning how to be a better ‘team player’ and how to be nicer to people … among other things….

    Pep talks; yep… have done a few myself. Been given a few. My wife coached our sons soccer team back in the 4th and 5th grades, so she had lots of opportunity.

    Later–

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    1. Corporate team building sessions? oh dear. We did one of those when I was at Arena Stage in DC-they took us all out on a boat for it-right in the middle of a big build. We figured they knew they would have to take us out on a boat to get us to stick around for the whole thing.

      Can I just write you a “Ben is a very nice guy” pass?

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      1. Oh, MiG, would you please?? Not sure it would help… and I am nice– Right up until they piss me off… then I get grumpy. That’s why I don’t do retail… too many idiots in the world. Present company excluded of course!

        Would have been cold on the boat today! But the sun was nice…

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  21. Late to the party today.

    1. Clyde – I’m glad that wife/Sandy/Sandra Marguerite is doing better. Phew. My grandmother had a dear friend named Mugs – I think because Grandma spoke so fondly of Mugs, I’ve continued to love the name/nickname.

    2. A pox on anyone that tries to get their toddler into organized sports. Get your own life, I say. Kids need time to be kids and just play. Darling Daughter has been in dance class, but not an overly-organized one where she had to dance “just so” and wear the right leotard. Bah. Moving to the music was enough. Same with gymnastics – she took it until she got bored. Both were through the Y and very non-competitive. Currently she is in an after school art class. Our rule has been “nothing involving more than one evening/afternoon and/or one part of a weekend day” – she needs the rest of the time to be six (or five or four…and soon seven). She may not ever be in the Olympics, but she (hopefully) a well-rounded adult with a creative mind (for those of you familiar with the “Pinkalicious” stories, she just got to thinking that perhaps she should write and “Architect-alicious” story…).

    3. Pep talks? Probably – both listening and giving. At a prior job, we had a motivational speaker come in at the beginning of the week-long program we ran for high school students and get them excited about the week they were embarking on. He was good – a balance of humor and wisdom. Best advice (that I still try to carry with me), “be more interested than interesting.” Ask questions and listen rather than trying to be the center of attention. Some days I’m better at it than others.

    Happy evening all!

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      1. I think “compulsive” is simply not in my make-up. Too much of a taciturn Norwegian Minnesotan for that, I think. Unless gjetost is involved… 😉

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  22. Your book shopping list for the day’s blog:
    So I was in B & N for awhile and happened to notice two books: first is “Superbaby, How to Prepare Your Baby for the First Three Years.” or something like that. Way past Baby Einstein, Dale. Second, just released for your Christmas pleasure (and I am not making this up but you will think I am) “Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams, the Illustrated Edition.” That was for me the worst book I was ever assigned to read. I therefore did not even open it to see the illustrations, but you are invited to go look, wink, wink, nudge, nudge.
    So then I thought I would find a book on pep talks in the sports section. Did not but found a book by Pete Carroll called “Winning Is Forever,” a very funny title considering that the NCAA took away one of his national championships and many victories for major rules violations. Funny.

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