September 2022
About a year ago in the Spring of 2021, I was reflecting on memories of my Stepdad Josh. Occasionally, he and I used to watch Jeopardy together. He would just bury me by answering questions before I finished reading the clue. I was always blown away with his retention of historical dates, facts, etc. For example, he’d ask if I knew a song, then without giving me a chance to answer would say “I Wanna Rock by Twisted Sister, 1984”.
At the time of Josh riddling off the song title, the song had been out roughly 20 years and it struck me. YOU HAVE MEMORIES FROM 20 YEARS AGO?? Dang… YOU’RE OLD! And don’t worry, I made sure he knew it. Our relationship was mostly giving each a hard time in-between hugs, belly laughs and happy tears. He made every room full; his booming voice and fun-loving nature were the stuff of a legend. I miss him every day.
Those memories that came flooding back a year ago really got me thinking - do I have any significant memories from 20 years ago?? YES OF COURSE I DO. I was 18 years old; I have a lot of memories from that time in my life. I took a moment to digest that I now qualified as OLD by my own definition. I started thinking about how I spent that last year before I left for college at Cal Poly – SLO.
On the bench trying to figure out how we used to play for 90 minutes
Mostly I was playing soccer, going to school, working a little bit, and going to the beach as much as humanly possible. I started thinking about my teammates on my club soccer team and some guys I hadn’t seen since our last tournament… 20 years ago.
My immediate thought was to reach out to a few guys and see if any of them were interested in a 20-year reunion. I shouldn’t have been surprised that the feedback was so positive. These guys were tremendous athletes but everyone is and continues to be a better human being. Each guy was willing to do what was best for the team despite being fierce competitors. If we lost the ball, missed a pass, made a mistake no one yelled, complained, or walked back on defense. Every guy put their head down to make the run back to support the team. We won and lost as a team, always.
Familes, friends, wives, and our KIDS there to see if we still ‘have it’
We spent so many weekends of our formative years traveling together, eating meals, and standing around joking in hotel lobbies. I had no idea how lucky I was nor how much I would miss these guys. I also didn’t realize I would miss working our tails off together to impose our will on another team like I do. It was really the only team I can remember playing on that was any good. We went on a RUN, we won a lot of games, leagues, tournaments etc. Man was it FUN!
In late July, we were able to get the team back together in San Diego for a reunion. We had beers, went to the beach, and of course played a little soccer. We had about 80% of our team show up. It was an amazing turnout. At one point during our scrimmage, I asked our assistant coach how long we had been playing and he said 10 minutes. 10 MINUTES! We were floored.
Long gone are the days where we’d suit up for 90-minute games, multiple times a day, often playing 5 or 6 games over the course of a long weekend. Last time, I did that? Yep, you guessed it, it was about 20 years ago. Dang… I guess this officially makes me old.