Upon Further Review: Dad gets grilled in the pits
America honored its veterans on Monday, as we observed Memorial Day. Memorial Day has great meaning and as I get older I realize just how much anyone who has ever served in the military has had to sacrifice so much for each and every one of us.
I have had friends who went off and fought for this country, and several family members who had to go off the war. We all owe each one of them many thanks and a show of respect for what they had to do.
Years ago for me, Memorial Day was just a four-day weekend — extra time to spend on the lake or on the golf course.
I thought of it only as the beginning of summer and I hate to admit it, but I never paused to take time and truly understand what it meant.
Over the weekend I gave much thought to just how much our military men and women have given to this great country, and it made me very proud to know even a few of them.
On Monday we cooked out in the back yard like every other American. But this year was a little different. My oldest daughter invited over 14 or so friends to join us.
I spent most of the morning working in the back yard, setting up the badminton and volleyball net, the horseshoes and yes, my favorite, croquet.
Mother Nature opened up and produced blue skies for an evening of what I thought was going to be easy pickings by dominating the games in my back yard.
The wife had decided to grill chicken instead of the usual hamburgers and hotdogs. So this is were I think things went south for me and my ability to perform at my best when it was time to play.
You see it takes time and effort to cook chicken. Hamburgers are slapped on the grill and five minutes later your ready to eat.
But no! Chicken has to be cooked slow and marinated with barbecue sauce. And let me say this, it take a long time to cook 22 chicken breasts.
So as I slaved over the hot grill for almost two hours, I begin to feel all that competitive spirit that had built up while I was setting up the games start to dwindle.
Then I thought maybe it was just hunger taking over, and all I needed was a little food to get be ready for the competition.
Without going into great detail, let me just say after the second game of badminton I quickly moved on to croquet. Yes, I’m not as fast as I used to be and during most of the game the other team kept cheating. They kept hitting the birdie in the place were I wasn’t.
So up next was croquet. I knew I had this one in the bag. When I mowed the yard early that morning, I made sure to cut the grass with a good little slope that I would use to my advantage. It worked, I took the best five out of seven to rule the croquet game.
I saved the best for last — or at least I thought so.
Now when it comes to pitching shoes, I’ve had my share of ringers. But with this group of younger — or let me say, less experienced group of horseshoe players — I had already started to feel the victory.
But after several games, I soon realized I had my hands full. Yes, there was a certain person equal to my abilities on the stakes.
Tied six games to six, it was time to take control of the situation. But the wind started to pick up during the championship game and it threw me off my mark as I fell to a 17-year-old.
I demanded a rematch, since it was my back yard and my rules, but it never happened. You see, when you’re 17, you have to be home at a certain time and since it was only 10:30, he had to leave. (Or at least that was his excuse.)
Now I blame all this on my wife for making me slave so hard over the grill. If I had time to relax and rest before we played, the outcome would had been totally different. I guarantee it!