The basketball hoop is finally up.
In difficulty, it was somewhere between the raising of the flag at Iwo Jima and the building of Tower of Babel.
A few weeks ago, when I thought I could do this without the aid of the Army Corps of Engineers, I had the first pole put into the ground during the driveway paving. I then consulted the directions and realized that I was never going to have a basketball hoop, just a 4-foot pole in my driveway to taunt me and a box full of parts in the garage taking up space.
The directions were like the prophecies of Nostradamus…easy to see what they meant after you got it done, but not very useful in predicting what to do before it happened.
But into town rode a hero. We’ll call him Rick, mostly because that is what his name is. He read the directions and said he thought we could do it.
After a few detours and a couple do-overs, it was complete. The directions called for three capable adults. Rick was two short, but his leadership pulled us through.
We celebrated by shooting a few baskets and I congratulated myself on knowing someone like Rick.
