Bootleg Sittin' In, June 2005

Many of you won't be on the mailing list for the magazine anymore, so I'm posting my column here. If you want to be surprised and read it when the next issue comes out, you need to cover your eyes now. Anyway, nobody is making you read this...

“Juniors are the future of the sport!”

It is a swell and spirited rallying cry, for sure, and you’ll have to trust me in that I’m a believer in the cause, but I’m just not so sure that all of those sounding this sound bite actually understand what it takes to get juniors involved with the sport. For instance, bicycle racing must compete with birthday parties, date night, baseball, swim team, other siblings, and mowing the yard. And that is only one weekend at our house.

A couple of weeks ago I was sitting at my desk cranking out work stuff when I looked at the clock and thought, “Gotta hurry, Kid #1 gets out of school in 45 minutes.” The phone rang at 2:17p and I answered to hear, “This is Miss Tendez at the school, and I wanted to let you know that though Kid #1 is very sweet and we enjoy him here at the school, the students were released at 1pm today for the summer.”

On my way to pick up Kid #1, I received a call on the cell phone from Kid #2 and 3’s pre-school. “Mr. Williams, we wanted to let you know that you need to pick up Kid #2 because she is running a fever.”

After picking up Kid #1 we motored over to the pre-school to pick up Kid #2. As I entered the place, Kid #3, whose class was changing rooms, saw me. For those of you with kids under 2 years old, y’all will understand that there was no way we were going to be able to leave that school without taking him with us.

So the four of us squeezed into the two seatbelts in my pickup because I didn’t have Kid #2 and #3’s car seats in it--we were planning to have Mama pick up Kids #2 and 3 while I took Kid #1 to his baseball game that evening. Mama ended up working late, so the lot of us went to catch some little league action. Someone out there give me a pinch when it looks like “Juniors” and “Bike Racing” are coming into focus, and keep in mind what I do for a living here.

After a dinner of hot dogs and big league chew and a game that had to play out the tie (we are in the playoffs), we got everyone home and reasonably bathed by 10freakin’pm. As I tucked Kid #1 into bed, he reminded me that now that school was out, swim team practice was now in the mornings at 7:30a. “Got it,” I told him.

We got through Friday morning just fine. Kid #3 was taken to his place of business, the older one taken to swim practice, and Kid #2 was serving a one day suspension from school for getting a fever. Mama had to be driven to work, because we were all taking her car to the track (Bike Racing!) that night, and it was easier for me to corral the herd and pick her up on the way. While Kid #2 slept, I even managed to get the yard mowed mid-day before loading up the car with bike gear. As I loaded up Kid #1’s bike, he told me he got a flat the last time he rode it, which was two weeks earlier.

We made a rush job of making some sandwiches and snacks for the night, filled up a water jug, picked up Kid #3, picked up Mama, and then made the 25 mile, 80 minute drive to the Superdrome for a night of track racing against five other juniors. Kid #1 set a personal record by completing one race without being lapped by the older kids.

After his last race, we picked up anything that looked like it belonged to us, be it a bike, gear, food, or person, and we threw it in the car, drove home, and had the lights out just a tad after midnight.

Mama and I actually cheered a little cheer when we heard the storms hit that night, because that meant the 10:00a baseball game was likely to be rained out. That also means there would be an extra game the next week, but sometimes that bit of breathing room is all we need. Then again, if you have to loosen your belt a notch after a big meal it isn’t because your pants just got too small.

After a big clap of thunder, Kid #1 comes into our room and asks, “If the game is rained out, can we go race bikes instead?” What happened to Saturday morning cartoons?

There wasn’t enough rain over night to cancel the baseball game, so we loaded up to be there the customary 45 minutes early for warm ups. Made it almost to the end of warm ups before the game was postponed due to rain, and since it was only postponed, we loaded up three wet kids and two soggy parents into the car and just sat for another half hour waiting for the rain to let up. When the automatic sprinklers turned on while we waited in the rain, we figured that was it for the day.

So, we all went back to the house, and Kid #1 said, “Let’s race!” We dropped off Mama and Kid #3 because he was invited to a birthday party, and I loaded up the bike and gear, grabbed some dry clothes for Kid #2 and me, and we hurried our way to Mesquite for the race. Along the way, Kid #1 kept saying, “I hope it rains. That would be epic!” Kid #2 kept saying, “Donut!” It was sunny from the house all the way to the race and all the way up until they said, “Go.”

Kid #2 threw a near fit when I loaded her into the car just as the race started, and not even donut holes with sprinkles could get her to calm down. I drove us to a spot on the course where we could watch from the car, and just as I opened the tailgate to give us some shelter, the Juniors came around for their first lap. We cheered for Kid #1 like the Tifosi would for a returning from the dead Pantani. That was our boy out there racing in that weather with kids twice his age!

Just as we were settling back into the car to wait for the race to come back around, Kid #1 surprised us by jumping in the car. He sat there dripping all over Mama’s interior and told us the race had been postponed and that they were supposed to wait in their cars. The race didn’t end up happening, and by the time we were on 635, I had two kids whose lips were blue, but they at least they were sleeping.

That evening we were invited to a party held by some friends we hadn’t seen in some time. While there, Kid #3 locked himself in a bathroom and Kid #2 busted her lip open on a pitcher of margaritas.

The next day was me and Mama’s anniversary, so we mowed the yard, caught up on laundry and went to the grocery store. That evening Grammy came into town, so Mama and I went on our first grown up date in about a year. We had plans for dinner, dessert and a show, but after dinner, we tagged out and called it a night just too tired to pretend that we weren’t tired.

Monday was Memorial Day, but I didn’t take that into account when I scheduled some work that needed to be done. While the kids went “swimming” in the sprinkler, I got a call from some friends, who live in Ft. Worth, wondering where we were, since we said we’d meet them at the bike race…

And then I realized the solution to the “Where are the Juniors” problem. If you really want to get Juniors involved with racing, the races need to be held at suburban Mexican restaurants on $3 pitcher night with free babysitting provided.