When we moved here over ten years ago our youngest daughter was playing basketball. Her coach gave her an assignment to make 100 baskets every night before she had dinner. Well we lived a ways from the school playgrounds so we bought a free standing basketball hoop that could be adjusted to be the correct height or could be lowered for younger kids. She conscientiously made her baskets every night until she no longer played. (1st picture)
She wasn't the only one that used this hoop to shoot on. The boys in our neighborhood played for a few minutes every day on their way home from school too. It got used a lot. A few weeks ago there were two boys playing on it and they were rocking the backboard with the pole to make the other one miss their shot. To their amazement, and to mine as well, the pole broke at the base and tipped forward---a lot. (2nd picture)
A couple of days later the wind came up and blew pretty hard---it tipped the standard a lot further and I was worried that one of the kids would get hurt when it finally fell so I went out and took it apart. (3rd picture) While I was doing this all of the kids were coming home from school and they all told me how bad they felt about it getting broken. One boy, from a very athletic family, asked me if he could have it. He said if he could he would carry it home. I told him he could have it if his dad approved of it and I would bring it up if he did.
Nothing happened for quite a few days and I was getting ready to put it all in the garbage when two dad's in the neighborhood showed up and loaded the pole and the backboard. They tried to take the base to the dump but I had filled it with sand and then water so it was really heavy. After they left I chopped the top out of the base with an ax and piled the sand on the drive way.(4th picture) I let it dry and then put it in buckets and moved it into the garage to use for putting on oil drips on the road and garage floor.
Monday I loaded the base onto the garbage can so it could be hauled to the dump. It took quite a while but we are finally finished with the basketball standard. (5th picture)
WE TALKED ABOUT BUYING ANOTHER ONE BUT DECIDED SINCE ABOUT HALF OF THE COURT WAS IN THE ROAD AND WE HAD PUT IT THERE WITH OLDER CHILDREN PLAYING ON IT WE DECIDED THAT WE WERE PROBABLY AT PERSONAL RISK SHOULD A CHILD BE HIT BY A CAR WHILE PLAYING ON IT. HATE TO WORRY ABOUT THINGS LIKE THAT BUT FOR SURE---TIMES ARE A CHANGIN'!!!
2 comments:
I read the blog of a history professor. He blogged about how when he was kid they used to play this crazy tackle game during recess. He said he used to get all bruised up and scraped, but he loved that game. His daughter is not a teacher, and the school has set a rule that children are not allowed to run during recess! Yes, times are a changin!
Oops...I meant to say his daughter IS a teacher.
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