I sat on a stiff metal chair in the overpacked grade school gymnasium as the past flickered through my head. I thought about the fork in the road with two beaten paths laying ahead.
I took the path that led me to a metal chair in an overpacked gymnasium twenty three years into the new millennium.
I sat alone halfway back with an empty chair next to me. A chair that was empty because of another fork in the road. All of these forks in the road and I live on a grid system that doesn’t have any forks in the road.
My baby girl stood on the stage and glanced across the crowd. Many of the dads were waving their arms and jumping up and down like they were on a float in the Pride Parade.
“Timmy! Timmy! Look here Timmy! It’s Dad, it’s Dad, it’s dad Timmy!”
When Timmy’s dad sat his Lululemon ass down I did a swift “sell you fifty” flick of the wrist and Hazel saw her daddy. Just a quick stand and slight “here I am” gesture and my big ass was back on the metal chair. A subtle contact that didn’t embarrass my daughter and show her mom where I was stationed.
Hazel gave me a quick wave with her hand low near her waist and a subdued smile. Then she pointed me out to her friend who was standing to her left.
I read her lips, “that’s my dad right there….”
I noticed Hazel glancing towards the side of the room and that's when I spotted her mom. Leaning against the cinder block wall like Sharon Stone at the end of “Casino.”
Though I painfully admit that she still was the best looking broad in the gymnasium.
I endured the forty minutes of butchered music and the smell of over splashed cologne and perfume. I mouthed to Hazel from the distance, “you look beautiful, I’ll see you tomorrow” and she blushed and smiled.
I fat cheeked it to Betty the Green Blazer and quickly drove to the safer side of Mannheim Road.
There are still more forks ahead of me, but until that day comes I’ll drive on the Chicago grid that is straight and narrow.
A grid littered with joints that sell hotdogs and beefs, newspaper stands that carry the racing forms, taverns with Old Style signs and bakeries that make cannoli.
Today is the big snowstorm that has gone from 10 to 12 inches to maybe 1 or 2.
It is also National Anthem Day. Marvin Gaye at the 1983 NBA All Star game is my favorite rendition and the old Chicago Stadium was the best place to sing it at.
Happy Friday Chalkheads................
