Now Hear This: When it’s time to make a decision
I came to some of the most important conclusions of my life while “kicking a can.” (It was a Maxwell House coffee can as I recall).
There’s something about walking and kickin’ a can that’s magical. There’s hidden, grown-up knowledge in that can, I tell you. Things just come together as you walk, and think, and kick the heck out of that can. And, it’s OK to talk to yourself while kickin’ the can too. I was 8 or 9 the day I came to certain resolutions about life.
I decided cowboys didn’t really die in the movies, and I wanted the Indians to win once in a while. Daddy didn’t know everything like I thought he did, because I noticed he would always tell me to ask mama when I questioned him about the opposite sex.
I decided grandparents were my favorite people. That I would jump in front of a speeding car to save my dog Whizzer, because he was the love of my life, and he had already been run over once, and besides he could keep secrets. School was OK, but I thought I would be going for the rest of my life. It seems that way when you’re in the fourth grade.
I determined it was really not practical for children to be seen, and not heard. I decided a lot of what grown-ups said didn’t make much sense. Baseball was the greatest game ever, and one day I might want to learn to play golf. When we die, it’s like going to sleep, and then we wake up in heaven, and have to tell God why we did all the things we did.
I thought about mama telling us we weren’t going to take a vacation that summer, and I knew it was because we didn’t have the money. I decided she could have the money I had saved for a BB gun. But I didn’t know if it would be enough.
Mama said I could grow up to be whatever I wanted to be, if I studied hard enough and made good grades. I didn’t know what I wanted to be, but I knew I wanted to grow up in a hurry. I wondered why my friend Sammy didn’t have a daddy at home, and I thought it must be because his mother yells all the time.
I wondered if Roy Rogers would write me back (he did), and I couldn’t help think if it was really him, or somebody else who signed his name. My teacher told us the class would write a short story the following week about anything we wanted to, and I decided writing about things would not be much fun.
The chain on my bicycle was broken, and I knew it would be several more days before daddy would get it fixed, but it was OK, because I knew he was really busy, and anyway I was enjoying the walk that day kickin’ a can, and figuring things out.
Two years later, when my grandparents came for one of their visits, voices woke me up late one night. I opened my bedroom door, and asked mama what was wrong. She told me to go back to bed that everything would be all right. The doctor was there, and I heard him say he had called an ambulance for my grandfather. The next day he died of a cerebral hemorrhage.
That afternoon I took a walk, and kicked a can.
I tried to make some sense out of his death. I cried that day, and asked God to take care of my granddaddy ? and I knew he would.
I’ve got some decisions to make pretty soon. Guess I’ll start looking for an old tin can.
(Hope Hines is a television sports reporter and a Nashville personality.)