Lessons I learned from neighborhood kick ball games

Ok, today I was reflecting on my past a bit and remembering the "good ol' days" (which, of course, at the time weren't always that good).

I started thinking about the days when we'd pay kick ball in the empty lot next to our house...

All the kids in the neighborhood would come over after school and we'd have a terrific game of kick ball. Sure, there were some kids who didn't want to participate in the actual kicking of the ball but only wanted to be the "artificial" pitcher. {Yes, that would be "official" pitcher, meaning they'd roll the ball to home for both teams, but "artificial" and "official" really sounded familiar and could be confusing to pre-teens.}

So here are a few lessons that came to mind...

• It really doesn't matter when you were picked for a team, all that mattered was that you choose to get in the line to be picked. I can't tell you the names of everyone who played kick ball in my neighborhood. There were a lot of us. I can sort of remember who got picked first and who got picked last, but that isn't my lasting memory of our games. What really mattered is that we played. We were outside running around, enjoying the competition.
• That gets me to another lesson... Yes, believe it or not, back in the "good ol' days" one team actually won the game and the other team lost. We didn't hand out trophies to all participants. The winners got to go home knowing that they won and the losers went home strategizing about how they could do better next time. It was good to learn how to win AND learn how to lose!
• It's ok (and even fun) to get hurt, get dirty and get sweaty... even for us girls. There is nothing wrong with exerting physical effort. Hard work can be fun AND fun can be hard work! Sometimes it seems like our culture has made both of these phrases out to be bad words. For some people, their work is their life and everything is so serious. For others, they only show up to their job so that they get a paycheck and can go out and have fun! Why does hard work and fun have to be mutually exclusive? We should all have a lot of both in our lives.
• Many times when we had a lot of people playing we would resort to kicking a lot of ground balls so that the fielders wouldn't catch it from the air and get us out quickly. We would make them pick up the ball and try to 'peg' us with it before we got to first base. Some times, you could pick on a bad fielding opponent all game and just score runs one base at-a-time. But, you have to go for the home run every now and again! I learned that to keep doing what you are successful at doing is only part of the key to success. Every now and then you have to test yourself and try to kick the ball as far as you can. It's the only way to see if you can kick a homerun across to the other side of the street and into the neighbor's yard. (It was also challenging to see if the fielders could get it out of the yard before he came out and yelled at us.) ;)

So, there you have it for today:

• It really doesn't matter when you were picked for a team, all that mattered was that you choose to get in the line to be picked.
• It was good to learn how to win AND learn how to lose!
• Hard work can be fun AND fun can be hard work!
• You have to go for the home run every now and again!

I don't know if these same lessons are taught in today's video games, iTunes, or cell phones but they should be.

Ohhh, one more very important lesson: When it's time to come home to eat dinner with your family and your mom screams your name out of the back door, you should run home quickly before she has to scream your first AND middle name out to the entire neighborhood.