YA went snowboarding last weekend. I knew that she had a snowboard; her ex was a serious snowboarder, although as far as I know, she only went boarding with him a couple of times. But I was surprised by the amount of equipment she actually owns: board, boots, ski pants, helmet and some serious goggles. I took a photo of it all that she had laid out on the dining room table before she left. I was afraid to ask her how much cash she had sunk into this equipment. She mentioned before she left that the lift ticket for the day would be $34. Opinions were kept to self but it seems to me that this is an expensive sport.
As I thought about it, there are plenty of hidden costs to most sports. When YA was younger, her gymnastics was a big money suck. Monthly team fees, individual meet fees, leotards and the inevitable “stuff” available for sale at every meet. When she tried out for dance team, the price tag for everything was unbelievable; I had to tell her that I couldn’t afford both dance team and gymnastics. Diving wasn’t quite as bad but the team swimsuit was $97. Yowza. Luckily for my pocketbook, she decided she didn’t like the 5 a.m. practice time before we had taken the tags off the suit.
Swimming wasn’t too bad, although you always had to pay for pool time, either lessons at the Y or seasonal fees at local pools. Rollerblading wasn’t too bad, as long as you didn’t want to blade during bad weather/winter – then again, fees for the rink or the rollerdome (as it was called). Same for tennis; if you don’t mind mediocre courts and waiting times, once you pony up for a racquet and some tennis balls, you can play free in the parks. Winter play costs money for indoor courts.
In thinking about it, I guess running is about the cheapest of the sports – the only real expense seems to be the shoes, unless you feel the need to have gadgets for playing music or keeping track of your distance/heart rate, etc.
Tell me about your sport of choice. Do you participate or just watch? How do you keep the costs down?
Trail Baboon 
ari is 2
he’s not mine so i’m going to watch but it will be interesting
when the first of my 5 wanted to do sports we signed up and off he went. i was traveling quite about so i wasn’t coaching just making it when i could. baseball, basketball football hockey soccer were how we started. i remember walking over to the neighborhood rink when he was 5 and strolling on the skates and having some little kid ask me what team my son was on. he’s not on a team yet and the kid said if he’s not on a team yet he’ll never make it.
daughter followed up 2 years behind with a soccer entry and by this time i had a 1 year old and we took to family skiing at buck hill too. a season pass is expensive but pays for itself in 10 visits so it’s a good deal
i am big on play it again sports it today on facebook marketplace for equiptment because stuff is so expensive.
vs mentioned ski goggles. i paid $100 for a great pair and had them stolen the first day, they were too cool
that son who was skiing at age 1 was at one time involved in … baseball basketball football hockey soccer swimming karate trumpet guitar cello acting class and although not all at the same time (baseball and football didn’t conflict but swimming karate and music went year round. i had money so my bill at mac phail and orchestra hall, st. paul chamber orchestra and stuff like children’s museum and classes for chess and fencing arts and nature were in there too.
i was happy to pay and very sad when the money dried up and almost all had to stop
my two youngest girls had to stop oboe and trumpet and just do piano and we could not do gymnastics or even volleyball ($3500 to join the volleyball club) (why)
they ended up in frisbee which was 250 or 450 a season but i asked for a scholarship and got it reduced
sports should be open to everyone
equiptment on a rotating basis is a concept i have looked into starting up as a club concept but i’m onto too many concept companies so it will not get done until i get to it
a deal where you simply hand in your old stifffor the next size up and do it as an equiptment exchange
doesn’t work quite as well after high school but i’ll bet it would still apply when you’re done with these skis and want newer ones…
maybe i will get to it after all
ari is 2 and denver is 1 1/2 months so i’ll get to watch and give advice
already mentioned skiing
meet to find a hill…
snowboard for a tiny munchkin in the back of my truck as we speak
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I dislike most sports, but especially team sports. I really dislike watching others do sports. I don’t even like watching the Olympics. Cross country skiing is my preferred activity, but I wouldn’t care to watch it, either. I guess I was and am a music nerd, and I could watch people do music all day.
My dad loved sports, and I am thankful he had no expectations for me to participate in them. I also think that we should do away with college and university competitive athletics, as I believe it is a waste of money and is given too much attention when we should be emphasizing academics. Don’t get me started on pro sports.
There. I have had my crabby rant for the day.
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I agree that athletics have way too great an emphasis at colleges and universities. At the professional level, if the building of sports facilities had been subjected to a referendum vote here in Minneapolis, we would have had neither the Twins stadium or the Vikings giant architectural turd. In both cases the responsibility of the government body was abrogated as they engineered a way to avoid those referendums.
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Rant away. I struggled with the question while I was writing today’s bit because I wanted to leave the door open for people who don’t have a sport of choice, which includes me.
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This belonged under PJs comment.
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What happened to PJs comment?
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Nothing happened to her comment. But my comment about ranting was meant to go right underneath hers, not underneath yours.
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Has someone used my name in vain? I haven’t made any comments on this as yet.
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Good grief. Verily Sherrilee just not paying attention this morning. For some reason read Renee’s comment as PJs comment. I had a rough start. Overslept on the one day of the week that I don’t want to oversleep.
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Things should be looking up shortly, VS. Relax, breathe in, and slowly exhale.
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I was on a little league team for a couple of years when I was young and I was a runner for about fifteen years but that’s the extent of my participation in sports.
Both of my daughters had sports in which they were active. The older one was a swimmer from grade school all the way through college and Robin and I put in many long hours on uncomfortable bleachers waiting for that minute or two when she would get to swim her bout. She was on school teams and club teams. I remember the suits were pricy and wore out quickly and there were club fees but it wasn’t a burden at the time.
The younger daughter was a gymnast in high school and a competitive Scottish Highland dancer. Of the two, the dancing was the more costly.
A proper kilt can cost many hundreds of dollars. We were able to get the yards of wool necessary from an importer and make her kilt ourselves but it still was expensive. The regulations in Scottish dancing are very exacting and every piece of clothing has to meet specifications. Robin could make some of it but the parts left—shoes, stockings, etc.—all had to come from specialty suppliers.
The biggest expense of Scottish dancing was in the travel for competitions. We could drive to places like Kansas City and Alma, Michigan for regional championships but when she advanced to the national level that meant trips to Houston and San Diego and Scotland.
Spectator sports and I occupy alternate universes. I’ve discussed this before here on the Trail. I do not follow and have never watched, either in person or on television, any professional sports. I’ve seen portions of various olympics but that’s about it.
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Highland dancing seems more like an art to me.
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It kind of occupies a middle ground. It’s exceedingly precise and unlike other forms of dance there is no allowance for personal expression.
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When I traveled in the UK in the mid-1970s I was impressed by how many “police bands” played while marching in highly regulated and expensive outfits. I estimated that highland band performers played in outfits costing several hundred to a thousand dollars. These were cops who had to dig deep to buy outfits that met the standard for such things (including ostrich feathers, etc).
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Colliery bands are the same, miners bands.
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My current participation “sport” is celebrating the departure of 45.
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4 years of prep and it’s over before coffee in one self congratulating farewell
byedon
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HE’S GONE!
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Fishing might seem like a simple sport requiring only a rod, reel and a few baits. Anyone believing that has not been paying attention to the way the sport has evolved. Serious anglers in the Midwest set out with boats loaded with sophisticated aids. A typical modern fishing boat has two sets of sonar and three propulsion systems. A cheap fishing boat, rigged the way most are, costs $10,000 and easily can hit the $100,000 mark. While some fishing lures sell for three dollars, some sell for ten times that, and modern anglers might have several hundred lures in their boat at a time. While it is frustrating to lose a bait when a pike bites it off, that frustration is not alleviated when you just paid $40 for the bait.
Some anglers go to great lengths to hide the true cost of the sport from their spouses, but few succeed. What I used to hear all the time from the wives of serious anglers is, “Oh, I know what that stuff costs. But I’d rather he spent his time in that pricey boat than in some tavern.”
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LOL. When I first started working with rubber stamps, a demonstrator during a “party” once said to the women there “ it may seem like this is an expensive hobby, but just ask your husband how much his boat cost!”
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So many gender stereotypes to unpack…
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Too true. I will have to say though in my 20+ years of paper crafting, I have only actually met two men who are involved in the craft. I have heard of more, although not that many more. Going to a rubber stamp show is a serious estrogen overload.
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Creative rubber stamping got its start, I think, with the fluxus mail art movement, where quirky rubber stamps were a primary element. The fluxus movement was not gender dominated. When I had my rubber stamp making business in the late ‘80s, rubber stamps were not associated with scrapbooking or card making except for the occasional one-off card. I don’t really know why or how rubber stamps came to be such a female specific domain.
Also I’ve never owned a boat larger than a canoe and Robin was a partner in the purchase.
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If you want a glimpse of rubber stamping before scrapbooking, get a copy of this:
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i used to fish for carp in the minnesota river and sunnies on minnetonka with my zebco 101
corn / worms for sunnies and cigarette butts for carp
me and huck
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River fishing has always been different, tim, especially catfishing. For one thing, a lot of people fish rivers from banks. Removing the boat from the equation does simplify things radically and makes for a less expensive sport. Minnesota anglers have historically ignored river fishing, with one consequence that river fishing here is exceptionally good because of the lack of competition.
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I own a nice bicycle, a pair of ice skates that are a step above basic figure skates, and… um… that’s probably about it. I generally skate on the park rinks, so no rink fees. Biking is also enjoyed in my neighborhood and on park trails. There are some maintenance costs for both, but $10 to sharpen the blades on my skates is pretty cheap. Daughter is much the same way – skates, bike, the occasional new pair of tights or legging for circus (thankfully her school is not one that requires big bucks for a performance costume every year). She likes to ski and snowboard, but generally rents the equipment as she only goes a couple times a year and is happy to use the rental equipment when she goes (that way she doesn’t have to maintain anything… and I don’t have to store it). And, with the exception of figure skating at the Olympics, I am also in the camp of “don’t watch pro or college sports.” I just don’t get the appeal.
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I have cross country skis. I don’t have a current pass, but I do have a membership at a nature center that has some trails. The initial equipment purchase is a little steep, but after that, little expense beyond pine tar and wax, and I usually just skip the wax. Some people have waxes skis, and you only need the pine tar if your skis are wood.
Too warm and no snow so far this year.
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The only team I was ever on was the ice-skating team when I was quite young. Then we moved away from Jefferson City and that was the end of that. I did manage to hurt myself during PE twice during my school years. Pulled a hamstring once while doing gymnastics during class and then had a gruesome accident my senior year involving the track and a hurdle. Both of those accidents keep me kept me out of PE for a good bit.
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I guess I’m sort of the jock of the TBers. I grew up playing all sorts of sports–the big three–football, baseball, basketball to start with. Then I branched out into tennis, golf a bit later, hockey (terrible skater as a kid but I SOOO wanted to be a player). And of course, riding bikes and fishing as a kid (as tim said, the Zebco rod & reel and a can of worms. I also ran cross-country and track for a while. But my school days were back when sports hardly cost anything in terms of fees. It was just gear.
Sports was just what we boys did because dad was a pretty good 3-sport athlete in HS and our quality time with him was either playing sports in the yard or being coached by him on a team. He is a terrific example of the benefits of lifelong sports. He used to play tennis a lot, then switched to pickleball, and he still bikes daily. I can’t remember how many tennis matches I’ve had with him over the decades. Hundreds, probably.
I eventually whittled my life sports down to golf (all-time favorite), XC skiing, Ice skating outdoors (the only way), biking, and hiking. Also now, canoe trips in the BWCAW.
By far my most expensive sport is golf because of the green fees and obligatory beer after the round with the guys. I’m not an equipment freak so I only buy when I need to replace broken gear or woefully outdated technology (like going from wooden woods to metal woods to titanium-and-whatever fairway metals and hybrids). I haven’t purchased a golf ball in almost 25 years and I’ve only owned three putters in my life. I replace several golf shirts and maybe a pair of golf shorts every year (but I wear them most of the year when not golfing too so the cost is sort of a wash). I usually buy one pair of golf shoes each year to replace worn-out shoes because I almost always walk.
I compensate the expense with the near-zero capital outlay in my other sports. My ice skates date back to college. I never played on an organized hockey team so I didn’t have the gear and ice time expense. My brother was the hockey player among the siblings. I used to own a helmet and gloves and shin pads, and I still have an old stick and puck in the garage. But after I split my head open about 10 years ago playing rink rat hockey in town, she banned me from playing hockey. (Wasn’t my fault. My skate blade caught in a giant rut in the outdoor ice and I slammed face-first into a steel post supporting the boards behind the goal. Hurt like a sonofabitch. Seven stitches and a lost contact somewhere way up in my eye socket (the ophthalmologist quickly fished it out. Fractured my cheekbone just below my eye so I have a permanent dent there that actually changed the shape of my face. Unfortunately, I got uglier instead of more handsome. Sometimes scars make a fella look more sexy and rakish. For me, they just seem to say, “Klutz!”
My skis are about 20 years old (or more). I buy the three-year trail pass for $21 or whatever the cost) and an annual state park permit to get into state park trails.
I bought a 24-speed road bike about 10 years ago (only my third ever bike in my life). To date, I’ve only replaced a flat tire. Might need to spend a few bucks on it this summer because I probably put 500 miles on it last season.
Bottom line, even though sports are way overblown and overemphasized in our culture and pro sports are getting more elitist and ridiculous to watch with all the instant replays, drama, scandals, and insane salaries and costs for spectators, the life lessons I’ve learned from sports are invaluable. I can’t imagine not playing some sort of sport–probably golf–for as long as I can stand upright and swing a club without falling over.
Chris in Owatonna
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Sports vary, obviously. While many golfers chase that elusive perfect set of clubs, everyone basically knows that scores reflect skill far more than equipment. Most hunters I’ve known had a secret belief they were a far better shot than the results would prove, so they were on a never-ending quest for the perfect gun. Even worse, photographers are usually obsessed with gear. They refer to this as GAS (gear acquisition syndrome), and it is a rare photographer who is content to work with his or her current equipment. They always want something newer and better.
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Bigger toys for bigger boys. Farming isn’t a sport, but boy is it fun to get a new toy.
Yes to Steve and photography equipment. Or lighting design. Or computer gaming (so I hear). Or tools.
Back when I did sports, it was 4H softball. I remember buying a new glove at the Hardware store next to the Ben Franklin store.
Rochester doesn’t even have a Play-it-again, sports store.
When son started Lacrosse, it was still a ‘club’ and I think it was $300 to join. He was maybe 9th or 10th grade when it became an actual ‘sport’ according to the schools. Maybe that’s when the fee started; I don’t remember.
I do remember buying his gear and the helmet was $150 and that was a lot of money.And I looked at him and said ‘You’re going to play Lacrosse for the rest of your life!’ And he did play through 12th grade.
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I don’t know that I have ever considered myself a jock, but I have always enjoyed being active in sports, but like, Chris, not in any organized way.
When you grow up within an easy walking distance of a body of water, it’s easy and cheap to develop an affinity for swimming. When you live right across the street from a park with some wonderful small hills and plentiful walking paths, perfect for running, walking, skiing and sledding, that’s what you do, depending on the season. In winter, once your favorite swimming hole has frozen over, or lacking that, a local soccer field that has been transformed into an ice rink, you strap on your skates and go for it. Equipment was never a sophisticated and expensive obstacle to participating, nor were membership or entrance fees. Equipment was usually hand-me down, scuffed up, and well worn by the time it got to me. My childhood skis did double duty as both downhill and cross country skis, that’ll give you some idea of the sophistication of the enterprise.
Except for swimming and diving, for which I joined a formal club during high school, and which required twice weekly practice under the watchful eye of coaches and regular meets, all my other sports have been strictly recreational.
I was on SIU’s fencing and tennis teams, but participated only in tournaments within the university, and mostly for fun. At least that was my perspective.
As an adult, here are some of the other sports I have dabbled in: bowling, archery, kayaking, bicycling, soft ball, bocce ball, racket ball, table tennis, and badminton. Thirty-five years ago I bought myself a fancy pair of running shoes and a snazzy outfit for running in, only to discover that I have no talent or affinity for running. The red thread through all of this is that I am well enough coordinated to not be a total disaster in pursuit of any of these activities, but neither am I talented or dedicated enough to really good at any of it. Having fun and sharing the activities with friends was the main purpose. Exercising out of guilt or obligation because it’s good for you (read participating in Silver Sneakers) proved so boring that I lasted only one winter.
Ironically, I’m a couch potato these days because of a sports injury that has pretty much reduced my sports activity to watching tennis on television, and jumping to conclusions.
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I’m almost entirely a recreational sports person – have loved ice skating and folk dancing (yes, technically not a sport unless competitive). These are also the things I most like to watch, plus gymnastics – which I think I would have loved if I had encountered it as a child.
I wish I would have gotten started skiing – both kinds – as a kid, as I know a lot of people my age who still enjoy at least X country skiing. I am happy that I’m still able to hike and bike.
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OT – Just had a phone call from my brother-in-law in Denmark, congratulating us on our new President. They had watched the entire inauguration on TV, and despite the fact that b-i-l’s politics are pretty conservative, he was ecstatic that DT is gone.
On another front, most of my FB friends are progressives, and their FB pages are overflowing with joy, relief, and hope right now. It’s pretty emotional out there. My conservative friends, especially those who are (were?) DT supporters, have always been reticent when it comes to expressing their political views, and so far I’ve seen no reaction to today’s events from that camp. I’m hoping that they’re drawing a collective sigh of relief as well.
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I think I could be pretty good at badminton…
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Don’t know how this got here, and I’ll reposition it.
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I should add I wasn’t a very talented athlete. Above average in Little League and Babe Ruth, but never even made my HS team. I’m probably best at golf but still a hacker compared to the pros and even the best players in the state.
Chris
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I dallied with golf but never had the discipline to take lessons. The one sport where I worked the hardest was shooting clay targets. That was instructive, as I learned that I–almost comically inept and unathletic–could become quite competent at a sport if I practiced enough. But I also learned that any sport that results in a score is bad for me. As much as I loved clay target games I hated that the end result was a number, and that number would be an issue for me all week until I got a chance to shoot again. Some activities are just joyful, like canoeing, and I never feel bad about them. But shooting for a score was really wrong for me, so bowling, golf and many other activities were not for me.
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My father always said “I would rather watch paint dry than watch golf.” He viewed golfers as effetes, and golf a silly pastime. He never golfed for political reasons.
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As Mark Twain said, “a good walk spoiled”.
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I totally understand many people’s disdain for golf. For decades it has been an elitist sport, played by the privileged 1% or so. I hate those people with a passion, those who are so bored they have nothing better to do but flaunt their wealth by playing a game they think makes them look cool. But it’s a game the casual player, or the elitist who does it to close business deals or be seen with the “right” people, will never come close to appreciating for its spirituality, beauty, mathematical truth, artistry, and emotional control.
The mental side of the game is like no intellectual challenge I’ve encountered. It’s more beguiling, frustrating, and on rare occasions, rewarding than any game or sport I’ve played. Playing one’s best golf, which maybe happens once in 40 or 50 rounds, produces a high I can’t describe. The only sports feat that even comes close to matching that feeling of mastery is pitching a no-hitter or some perfect or near-perfect game where every pitch goes exactly where you want it to go and you’re always thinking one step ahead of the batter.
It is boring to watch . . . most of the time. But the major championships, especially the Masters and US Open, are reality TV at its finest, and real-est. And golf has become much more athletic, mainly thanks to Tiger Woods elevating the game to a level of top-level fitness and conditioning, plus strength, muscle memory, and mental toughness unmatched in any other sport.
I’ve been cursed/fortunate beyond words to get hooked on golf and be able to enjoy it for more than 50 years. I don’t expect anyone to understand me, but I just want to let you know that golf has some truly redeeming qualities, so it shouldn’t be dismissed out of hand because of the myriad stereotypes the “wrong players” have embued it with.
Chris in Owatonna
*how’s THAT for a midnight ramble??* 🙂
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The only problem I have with it is the contention of its supremacy in terms of intellectual challenge and mental toughness. Give me a break.
We all have opinions about this, that, and the other thing, there’s no doubt that we don’t all agree on everything. I see no reason why you should have to justify why you enjoy golf. I’m perfectly content to accept that it’s a game that gives you immense pleasure and satisfaction to play, for whatever reasons. There’s no need for you to justify that to anyone (except possibly your wife if she objects to the amount of time/money your spend on it). That you enjoy it is all the more justification you need.
And that’s my opinion about that. (Up for my 3 AM pee break.)
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I wasn’t justifying as much as explaining the joy and challenge and frustration I get from the game. I know I’m in a weird miniature minority group who thinks that way, and I’m fine with it. I’ll certainly never try to “convert” people to liking or even tolerating golf.
I will say that the “supremacy” of the intellectual challenge only happens when I am competing in a tournament and trying to play the best possible golf I can. A regular weekend round is far less challenging, but it still has its moments.
Chris–whose wife has had no problem with him playing golf for their entire marriage. She knew what she was getting into. 🙂
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My sport of choice would be running. I’m proud to hold a school record in the mile medley as anchor in the half mile (* that event has been eliminated in favor of meters)
Lately I have been watching cricket. It’s a great game. I played only once in Spain. Being retired. I ca accommodate the 12 hour time zone difference.
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I think I could be pretty good at badminton…
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Badminton is actually a pretty difficult sport if you play with people who are serious about the game. The outdoor game of batting a shuttle cock over a net with a racket, that most Americans think of as badminton, is really a far cry from the real thing. Check out badminton on YouTube, and you’ll see some pretty spectacular displays of skill. Many Asians, and surprisingly Danes, are pretty adept at it; they take the game to a level that most Americans aren’t aware of.
Which makes me wonder, why do some sports become more popular in some countries than others? Examples of sports that are huge in other countries but aren’t popular here, and vice versa are: soccer, badminton, cricket, handball (team sport), squash; baseball, and American football. There are probably plenty of others that just don’t come to mind at the moment. Any ideas of why that is? None of these sports are dependent on climate or terrain, so why is badminton in the US thought of as a fun lawn activity on a summer afternoon, but not as a serious sport?
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You’re right – I was just talking about the fun lawn game… getting so serious about it takes all the fun out of it!
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I would contend that “serious sport” is, or should be, an oxymoron.
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And I disagree, possibly because I define being serious about sports (or anything else for that matter) differently than you do.
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I really enjoy football; the REAL football called soccer.
It was never offered back in the late sixty-five.
I was glad to be involved in pickup games at NDSU.
The German students were incredible. I was assigned to mark one guy who only scored twice!
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I forgot T-ball. Never any better than a single with second base on the error at first.
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There are some things I will never really understand. I kinda get why team sports are exciting to people. But some of the things you see on the Olympics, things that are solo efforts, that people spend years training for, so that they can compete….like the shot put. How far can you hurl a small heavy ball? If you can hurl it farther than anyone else, is there real value in that?
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You could make that argument about any sports activity. None of them have real value.
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Some sports, like baseball and football and basketball and soccer, generate a considerable amount of economic activity. A fortune in beverage sales alone. But I don’t know about shot put. Seems like the interest is pretty limited. Once every four years for an hour or so?
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I guess I’m wondering why you choose generating revenue as a measuring tool for determining whether an activity is worthwhile? Do you use that same criteria for other pursuits to be worthwhile? Playing chess, for instance, isn’t exactly an activity that generates a lot of economic activity, yet seems to be generally viewed with a lot of respect and reverence.
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If some activity like shot put happens to capture someone’s interest enough that they spend years developing a skill in that area, surely it’s as valuable on a personal level as any other sport activity. It offers no value to me but I don’t think the sale of beverages ought to determine the intrinsic value of anything.
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I suspect that sports like the shot put, discus throwing, and the javelin throw are ancient, and revered partly for that reason. In high school I participated in both the discuss and javelin throw, and the physical skill set one needed to develop to be any good at it was quite challenging. I tried the shot put once and gave up immediately, too damn hard.
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OT – I trust that everyone on the trail today watched the inauguration, and if I’m right about that, all blown away by Amanda Gorman. What an amazingly bright light! Here’s the full text of the poem she performed for the occasion:
The Hill We Climb
by Amanda Gorman
When day comes we ask ourselves,
where can we find light in this never-ending shade?
The loss we carry,
a sea we must wade
We’ve braved the belly of the beast
We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace
And the norms and notions
of what just is
Isn’t always just-ice
And yet the dawn is ours
before we knew it
Somehow we do it
Somehow we’ve weathered and witnessed
a nation that isn’t broken
but simply unfinished
We the successors of a country and a time
Where a skinny Black girl
descended from slaves and raised by a single mother
can dream of becoming president
only to find herself reciting for one
And yes we are far from polished
far from pristine
but that doesn’t mean we are
striving to form a union that is perfect
We are striving to forge a union with purpose
To compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters and
conditions of man
And so we lift our gazes not to what stands between us
but what stands before us
We close the divide because we know, to put our future first,
we must first put our differences aside
We lay down our arms
so we can reach out our arms
to one another
We seek harm to none and harmony for all
Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true:
That even as we grieved, we grew
That even as we hurt, we hoped
That even as we tired, we tried
That we’ll forever be tied together, victorious
Not because we will never again know defeat
but because we will never again sow division
Scripture tells us to envision
that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree
And no one shall make them afraid
If we’re to live up to our own time
Then victory won’t lie in the blade
But in all the bridges we’ve made
That is the promise to glade
The hill we climb
If only we dare
It’s because being American is more than a pride we inherit,
it’s the past we step into
and how we repair it
We’ve seen a force that would shatter our nation
rather than share it
Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy
And this effort very nearly succeeded
But while democracy can be periodically delayed
it can never be permanently defeated
In this truth
in this faith we trust
For while we have our eyes on the future
history has its eyes on us
This is the era of just redemption
We feared at its inception
We did not feel prepared to be the heirs
of such a terrifying hour
but within it we found the power
to author a new chapter
To offer hope and laughter to ourselves
So while once we asked,
how could we possibly prevail over catastrophe?
Now we assert
How could catastrophe possibly prevail over us?
We will not march back to what was
but move to what shall be
A country that is bruised but whole,
benevolent but bold,
fierce and free
We will not be turned around
or interrupted by intimidation
because we know our inaction and inertia
will be the inheritance of the next generation
Our blunders become their burdens
But one thing is certain:
If we merge mercy with might,
and might with right,
then love becomes our legacy
and change our children’s birthright
So let us leave behind a country
better than the one we were left with
Every breath from my bronze-pounded chest,
we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one
We will rise from the gold-limbed hills of the west,
we will rise from the windswept northeast
where our forefathers first realized revolution
We will rise from the lake-rimmed cities of the midwestern states,
we will rise from the sunbaked south
We will rebuild, reconcile and recover
and every known nook of our nation and
every corner called our country,
our people diverse and beautiful will emerge,
battered and beautiful
When day comes we step out of the shade,
aflame and unafraid
The new dawn blooms as we free it
For there is always light,
if only we’re brave enough to see it
If only we’re brave enough to be it.
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Kayaker here, the initial investment is expensive but outside of that there isn’t much cost associated unless you’re going to be fishing out of it. Which at that point you’re paying for a fishing license.
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I buy the stuff so i will actually exercise 😭😆😳😳😳 like leggings and workout clothes. I like to buy them at a discount either at Walmart or from Fabletics I’ll truth be told the only thing I like about Fabletics is the colors but the ones I bought from Walmart fit me way better 😆
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