I Stand (Dance) Corrected

I've loved the picture below since I first set eyes on it. Your intrepid coach, teaching the finer points of The Beautiful Game to his young and impressionable charges as they stand at rapt attention.


Except for the kid all the way on the left. He's doing his own thing, as he often does. That's AJ, of course. The photo is a perfect representation of all that is hilarious--and occasionally annoying--about my darling son. I have dozens of others that illustrate the same. Always in motion. He can't sit still. He's more than a bundle of energy. He's energy personified.

I wonder where he got that, since I'm such a calm and measured person. My mother frequently claims I was also excitable as a child, but I don't remember it the same way. The thing about memories, though, is that they are lies we tell ourselves.

This photo turned up on Facebook recently. It's my 5th grade class. The guy in the red jacket? The one in motion? Yep. Me.


I've got at least three more years of AJ-spasms to go, I guess. At least he's not going to be the kid flipping off the camera (Arnie Munoz, I believe).

(And for those of you who know Donny, that's him in the front left, covering his face and wearing what appears to be a Golden State Warriors t-shirt.)