But ah, the exuberance of teenagers.
Where I live, when there is a football game, the whole town is transformed. Everywhere you will find exuberance and excitement and the color red.
Well yesterday, I was off to my morning thing and passed a local school…all along the road you could see 14 and 15-year old boys (don’t ask me how I know, I just know) holding signs saying “Football Parking, $5".
They are jumping up and down. They are beside themselves.
They are splendid!
I am stopped — four of them rush over to my car — ‘hey, come and park! five dollars’!! I rolled down my window and smile my perfect, charming and old lady smile — ‘sorry guys, I am not even going to the game!’
They throw their bodies arounds in disappointment — ‘awwwwww’ and run back to the curb.
The boy holding the large sign in that group — the “Football parking, $5" sign — throws it down to the ground, shouting:
“I am so sick of this s—”.
I couldn’t stop laughing.
But oh, how much disappointment in his life that the lady in the white car is not even going to watch the football game!
How amazing is his life that this is his biggest problem all day!
How hopeful to me — being as far from being a 15-year old boy as one could be — that those guys could care so much about $5 parking that they would run and jump about and run into the street to try to charm older little me.
This, to me, a lovely reminder of the pure delight of that age.
The amazing enthusiasm fused by the promise of good competition.
Expansive Excellent Enthusiastic Effort.
The sunshine and the simplicity and the hope and purity of that moment was overwhelming.
Loved it.
