Remember when we ruled the school?

My daughter Rebekah just arrived home with an impressive Grade 7 report card and announced she's officially a Grade 8 student and as such she and her classmates have reached the top of the public school mountain.

"Grade 8s rule the school Dad, don't you know," she said.

Yah, I think I've heard that before. The last time I looked I made it through my years at Vincent Massey Public School. If memory serves me correctly 1983 was my class's year to rule the school.

But unlike the Class of 1983, the Class of 2012 will require two things we didn't -- constant affirmation and being spoiled in ways that were unheard of in the 80s.

Call this my Daddy rant because I've officially been put on notice about all the expenses a Grade 8 will incur such as the semi-formal at Christmas ("I'll need a dress and shoes Dad"), the Grade 8 day at the Blue Jays (that's not unusual as most grades do that at least once), graduation ("You don't expect me to wear the same dress, do you?") and last but not least the grad trip to Montreal. The current Grade 8s return from their trip tomorrow and for the low cost of $500 Rebekah will be there in 2012.

My how times have changed. In my day we were lucky to get bussed to shop and home economics classes at St. J. Phillips. An out of province trip? That type of thinking just didn't happen. But the way things are these days field trips are far more common and costly. As a parent I constantly fill out the forms on a regular basis. Today's students are a well travelled bunch.

As I write this I can hear an old man ranting, "When I was a kid we walked 10 miles uphill to school and 20 miles back home." The weather was always worse and we suffered terribly on a daily basis.

Oh my gawd, I am that old man!

I told Rebekah not to worry about ruling the school. Her day will come as soon as the Labour Day weekend ends.

"Enjoy it because in one short year you'll be a nifty niner," I said.

Rebekah rolled her eyes at me. I get that a lot these days and don't expect it to end any day soon!

Ruling the school...those were the days, weren't they?

Expectations

If I was to tell you Movie X was brilliant and then you heard a similar review from another friend you would expect that film to be very good. If you then read spectacular reviews about the movie you would enter the theatre expecting everything to be perfect. But we all know what would happen once the movie was over and you left the theatre. Disappointment.

Your expectations were so high that there's no way the movie would ever measure up. That's what happened to me last night when I saw Peter Gabriel at the Molson Canadian Amphitheatre. And I wasn't alone.

I was so pumped to see Peter Gabriel. I'd seen him before at the SkyDome in 1993 during his Secret World Tour and his performance was powerful, fun and jammed with amazing vocals. Nothing about the performer on stage last night resembled the one 18 years ago.

Peter Gabriel and the Blood Red Orchestra sounded like a winning combination when I purchased the tickets in April. But when Gabriel walked on stage you could hardly hear him. He spoke softly and sang softly. The orchestra and audience drowned him out at certain points of the performance.

He'd stripped down his show, took out the drums, guitars and theatricality that had become his trademark earlier in his career. The only time he moved on stage was to walk off while the orchestra played and he did that numerous times.

The clincher for me that I wasn't the only one caught off guard by this performance was the people around me. They were not engaged at all with what was (or wasn't) happening on stage. They were looking around the amphitheatre, leaving their seats in the middle of a song to get a beer and looking out at the poor people in the 400 level as the rain came down. When Biko was performed Peter had to tell the audience to stand up at the end of the song. He would NEVER have had to do that if the song was performed the way it was originally recorded. The last time I saw Gabriel sing Biko everyone was on their feet because the performance compelled the audience to stand. There was nothing compelling about last night's stripped down rendition of Biko.

People directly behind and beside me lamented he was not the Peter Gabriel of old, that he looked fat and had lost his spark. Not everyone felt that way. A review in the Toronto Star heaped praise on the concert (http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/article/1013624--peter-gabriel-s-new-blood-tour-a-masterful-reinvention). But the large group of people who left the concert an hour before it ended with us felt differently. We were expecting something different, something that resembled the Peter Gabriel of old. We came to the concert ready to rock with one of the greatest and left without any ringing in our ears at all.

I built this concert up into something it was not. Expectations, they're rarely what you expect them to be.

The wins and losses of coaching success

How hard could it be to coach nine and ten year olds? That's a question I asked myself last January when I signed my name to the dotted line when registering my son to play for the Woodview Mite softball team.

I played for Baker Park from the age of 8 until 21 so I had experience. I'd also helped coach a woman's team while living in Toronto in the 90s. It was relatively easy considering most of them were older than me at the time. It felt like being an arm-chair coach, most of them were good at one position or another so I simply pencilled them in at their best position and let them be the heroes. It worked out well as we made the City of Toronto finals and had a great time (and a few beers afterwards) getting there.

But the team I coach these days cannot drink beer with me, they are of the juice box drinking variety and they  do not know the game. It's not so easy to pencil them in at this position or that because few if any of them know where they can play. It's up to me to coach them, to determine where they're best suited to help the team. Oh yah, I also have to switch each and every player into as many positions I can per game at this level. It can prove to be quite interesting.

I thought all was well when the first two games of the season came and went. Two wins, no losses, not bad for a first year coach. The kids were also encouraged by the two-game winning streak. That though was early June. Our late June record now shows two wins, five losses. Ouch.

This past weekend was our first tournament and for reasons that were beyond me we were slotted into the A Division. Two wins and five losses and we're in the A Division, okay, doesn't make a lot of sense but my team played along and we managed to squeak out a win in our first game against Kedron, a team we'd lost to in regular season play. The kids were on Cloud 9 when we'd won. They jumped up and hollered when we'd won giving me a sense of accomplishment. It felt good seeing them so exited about one win.

The next day we played Courtice 3, one of the few teams we'd beaten earlier in the season. It was a hard-fought match but Woodview came out on the losing end 15-13. Tough.

Game 3 saw us meeting Harmon Park and three of the players on that team were as tall as me. I'm 5 foot-seven but also hold the distinction of being 43 years old. These three kids were 10 years old and looked me straight in the eye! Bam, bam, bam, our team was literally giving Harmon Park batting practise. We went down to defeat, 16-4. There was no bronze medal game for Woodview this weekend. We played our hearts out but came up short.

Being the coach I felt the disappointment more than you'll know. My team wanted so much to play one more game and despite the huge loss we took at the hands of Harmon Park I hoped we'd still have a shot at a medal game.

The result left us all hanging our heads in disappointment. Then my Dad came forward to give me a heads-up. One of my players' fathers had struck up a conversation with him over the weekend and told him how his daughter was really enjoying the season so far. She thought I was a good coach because of my enthusiasm and that I moved her around the field so much. That was just what I needed to hear.

Truth be told it's in the rules that I have to move my players around to every position except pitcher and catcher. So if that makes me look like a good coach, I'll take it. But my enthusiasm stems from a belief that I think my team is THE BEST no matter what our record indicates. Yes, we have good players and not so good players. But each and every one of the 12 players on my team wants to play, have fun and hopefully win. I can always guarantee they'll play, I'm trying my best to make it fun but winning is not always as easy a recipe to follow. We've had limited success to date but I know we'll have more in the future.

No matter what happens between now and August, I want to continue making softball fun and I want to continue teaching my kids all I can about the game. My success won't be what record we end up with at the end of the season, my success will come registration next season.

I too started playing softball at the same age as my current team. We lost every game that season except one. We won that one by default. A few years later the same group of kids were winning city championships on a regular basis as they grew older and developed their love for the game.

My goal is to foster a love for the game. I hope I achieve it because the kids on my team now have so much potential. They're my team and I'm proud to be their coach.

Kickin' it old school

Try picking up a gas powered lawn mower this way. You can't.

 I'm no Fred Flintstone but there is one thing I do that many consider prehistoric.

I cut my lawn but in doing so I rarely make any noise. How do you do that without making noise, you may be asking yourselves? Well, it's easy once you take the engine out of your lawn mower.

That's right, I own a manual push mower. While others spark up their lawn mowers and get'er done I am content to push mine around the yard. The only power in my lawn mower comes from my upper body. It takes some getting used to each spring but once the muscles are warmed up it's all good.

It's called kickin' it old school.


Back when I bought this prehistoric grass cutter I only had a patch of lawn to worry about. Actually a whipper-snipper could have been used to cut my front yard but I needed something bigger for the backyard.
Well, I've moved since then and my current front and backyard now are significantly larger but I keep pushing and pushing and pushing. It's just something I do. All my neighbours use the gas powered variety of lawn mowers but I've remained faithful to the zero emissions type of grass cutter. David Suzuki would be so proud!

One advantage to using this style of lawn mower is safety. I have a 9-year-old son who is at that stage in life where he wants to help me cut the lawn so having him push this thing around the yard is far safer than a gas powered machine. I remember the look on my own father's face when he first let me use his LawnBoy. He followed me around for quite some time. At the time I felt as if he was cramping my space but now, a father myself, I understand his concerns. A push mower offers the advantage that when you stop pushing it the blade stops rotating. And you cannot cut the lawn while pulling it backwards because the blade only goes forward. Safe, simple and affordable.

Do I wish had another type of lawn mower? Sometimes. If your grass gets too long it can be REALLY tiring pushing your way through it manually. Truth be told it SUCKS. There's nothing worse than feeling like you ran a marathon when all you've done is gone back and forth, back and forth, back and forth to chop your grass down to a manageable level. You're sweating, tired, out of breath and you think, "What the hell am I doing this for? There's a reason why man invented real lawn mowers, it's so we don't have to feel this freaking shitty!"

But then I break free from my reverie and I realize that if there's one thing I'm good at in life, it's suffering. Why do things the easy way when I can do them my way?! Let's face facts, I always get into the longest line at the grocery store, I never get an up front parking space and if there's a traffic jam, chances are I'm in it. Suffice to say, cutting my lawn could be easier but I choose to make it challenging!

Will I ever buy a real lawn mower? Nah. If I ever did I'd never get the chance to answer the kids who come up to me every summer to ask, "Why do you use that type of lawn mower?" And I wouldn't be able answer "because I'm not a lazy slob like your father!" Catches them totally off guard. :)