The Brotherhood of the Sedentary Pants

I’ve closed the book on a few dreams:

• To play quarterback in the NFL
• To play baritone saxophone in a studio jazz band
• To be appointed Pizza Czar for the state of North Carolina by Governor Pat McCrory.

Let me tell you about a little dream of mine I’ve revived.

This dream is about a pair of jeans. Size 32 jeans.

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I’m not the gazelle I was in my youth. Let’s be honest, a gazelle in my youth I was not. I wasn’t swine-like, or of hippo proportions. My animal match: A bulldog. A fleet-footed, quick-witted, sharp-worded bulldog, but a bulldog, nonetheless. All barrel-chested and not at all svelte.

As I reel in the years and my pant size drags along behind, the changes have been subtle. Buttons and zippers require more … concentration. It’s a human phenomenon. In maturing age, the river of life flows over our once jagged lines and adds a smoothness to it. We’re rounded out, softened.

All right. Cut the poetry; this is a dude’s post about pants, let’s not forget. Target brand Blue jeans, with a loop for a hammer and side pockets for a ruler and pencils, like a carpenter would wear. Circa 2000. I might have worn them once. They’re dark. They’re good looking, albeit grossly out of style.

They’re probably the nicest pants I have. I rediscovered them while taking inventory of every article of clothing I own.

(I really did this. I have 86 baseball caps, 47 T-shirts, 18 pairs of underwear. I could go on).

The outdated jeans represent something to me, something I’d forgotten as roomier pants covered these fly jeans in my drawer like sentiment over the skeleton of an anklosaurus. Hidden, preserved, but just waiting to be excavated.

I’ve said goodbye to many pants over the years. Some to charity, some to the great khaki hunting ground in the sky, after I’ve scuffed the cuffs severely or wrecked them with Polynesian dressing all over the left leg. But these – these I’ve hung onto.

Why?

They shed light where there is darkness. Not unlike what St. Francis of Assisi implored us to do in his signature prayer, to sow faith where there is doubt.

I’m not saying my pants are holy, but they stand for this ambition I have, the same ambition that can see my daughters on college soccer rosters someday.

The same ambition that makes me want to write like a champ for my champ of a boss.

The same ambition that just knows the Colorado Rockies will get back into the World Series sometime between this season and mankind’s colonization of Mars.

It’s the gumption that I’ll turn these jeans from fossil to colossal if I can just moderate my beloved pizza and stay faithful to yoga class and never stop moving and improving, on the disc golf course and the sideline and even casting lines with Grace into a lake of a sleepy Saturday morning.

And by colossal, I mean that I’ll give youngsters a reason to laugh at the old dude in carpenter jeans from Target. I’ll just smile, because I know if a bulldog plays quarterback in the NFL or fits back in his size 32 jeans, it ain’t by accident. And it’s worth the journey.

On The Road Again: At Sorry Kid, Your Mom Doesn’t Play Well With Others

 

photo credit: #10 The Nail Art Squad via photopin (license)

I decided to take in some day baseball today with the Charlotte Knights. Dad and I didn’t miss many chances to skip school and work to get to the ballpark on Getaway Day. I didn’t want to start now.

So I bought one general admission ticket, printed out a scorecard, and soaked in the sun.

I also left the post posting to my friend Ashley at “Sorry Kid, Your Mom Doesn’t Play Well With Others.” The name of the blog says it all, really. So while she’s held hostage at the hospital with Kid No. 6, I left all the heavy lifting to her. What a gentleman, right?

 

Ashley’s honest, smart, and pretty hardcore. She says the stuff we’re thinking, but don’t have the guts to say out loud. And usually with a dash of spice tossed in.

Check out her posts, such as this love letter to Target. She says the stuff we wish we said!

So check out my contribution over there, while you’re at it. It’s about a convo I had (in my head, at least) with a really smelly dude at the gym. Back when I was the gym type. (I’m kind of over it. Thanks ZX Fitness.

I’ll have Ashley to my place next. You’ve been warned. Don’t miss it.

10 things my girls should always remember.

Hey girls. I think of advice constantly for you three, but at all the wrong times. You know, while you’re asleep, or when I’m in traffic, or while I stand deep in thought at the urinal.

So, I’ll do what any reasonable dad in 2012 would do – I’ll write it as a blog post.

Listen up.