Easily distracted

The Sullivan High School volleyball team served it up last night at their Meet The Redskins event. I sat in the bleachers, right next to the high school kids, who were really interested in the game.

OK, not really. There was a good crowd of them, 10-15 in all, but they weren't waving signs or wearing face paint. They actually weren't even looking at the game, and most of them didn't even have their bodies pointed towards the court.

Not that there's anything wrong with that, that's high school. It actually amazed me just how fast these high school kids could interact, but it even amazed me more that I had forgotten that I, too, had talked at that speed. I had sat in bleachers, too, and somehow demonstrated a two-minute scene from 'Tommy Boy' in only eight seconds, and explained, in detail, the funny way noise that guy next to me at the Amoco made while I was filling up my Slushee, and the funny walk he had as he left.

Apparently I had somehow forgotten my young, espastic self, but it all came back to me when I saw these kids. I graduated just 10 years ago, in 1998, and already this lust for story telling appears long gone. A sugar rush back then would mean cartwheels and backflips (Which surprised me, too, without any training), and now it means walking a little faster.

I do miss those days when when my mouth raced to tell a story that could top yours, or when I could hurry to tell what band I had just discovered, hoping it could express who I was. Now I can only rely on my job and car to do that, and my 1999 Ford Taurus is looking really dusty these days.

I looked at this cluster of students, which had them coming and going from it like bees from a hive, and then I looked across the gym at the adults. Simply put, it's relaxing to be an adult.

By the way, the kids didn't know what they were missing, the volleyball team looked excellent.