Passing It On...

It appears as though sleep has been evading me for the last week or so and I've managed to slack off of my blogging duties. Well, to be fair, the idea of writing can become a bit overwhelming, to me, so it's by default these lapses in posts are accompanied by moments of me needing to capture my breath. The beauty is my life is good and I'm smiling at the present time.

This weekend, one of my closest friends on this planet drove into town with his two and a half year old son, who affectionately called me uncle today or at least I think it was uncle, everyone said, "Awwwwwwe", so I think he was going for uncle (wipes tear away).

For me the idea of father and son trips is so appealing but it's even doper when the little ones are truly so little. My buddy would probably roll his eyes given the fact he more than likely had to play songs which kept my nephew engaged for their four hour trek into town. I think he's ready for Wu Tang but some would argue Veggie Tales still might be a thing.

Me and my buddy have had dialog for years about which futbol (soccer) team the little guy would have to become a supporter of; his dad being a Barcelona fan and me being a Manchester United fan, the kid would need to pick a side. If he and his wife were to have had a daughter, she would've had to side with her uncle, I would have dressed her up purposely in the only colors which matter in Manchester, UK, those of Manchester United.

During the course of our dialog, my buddy and me came to the realization that sport's teams are too commercialized and "easy" to become fans of due to a variety of reasons. I mean how many Warriors fans talk trash these days, I'll digress, but before I do, I'll like to give a special shout to my buddy Marc and and maybe two others who are dedicated to the Warriors cause.

My wild idea, which I shared with my buddy, was for the two of us to agree on a Premier League team that we could begin to baptize little man into throughout the course of his life. I'm definitely more of a futbol guy than my buddy but I'm also not married or chasing around kids telling them, "Hey, stop that, have you done your homework yet, go find your mom and tell her she looks like a snack 50 times..."

The team I've been pushing for the last few years, is Leeds United. My dream was always to have a man cave of sorts, sport's room, tv, and random assortment of whiskey throughout the room, also a no girls allowed sticker (only because girls have cooties; it's not bad if transmitted). The reality is, I have a living room that lies empty, though thoughts of an ignorantly sized tv dances around in my head, I have a guest room which is begging for some randomness to take place to it too, but most importantly I have scarves and jerseys, too many of each, so many I've given a majority away to my father who said, "About time, I get some these".

So how do you present a 2.5 year old with his first scarf, you say, "Hey, have a seat, I have something for you". This little man sits down and looks at me and his dad and I go through this short story of why he's getting this scarf and what it means and all that jazz, none of which he comprehends by the way but he's just staring at the both of us and smiling. There's something about the smile of a child that's so captivating. So he's smiling, his grandparents are smiling, cousins are smiling, and I'm thinking about the chances of this kid playing for Leeds United one day due to a scarf from his OOOOncle Teeeb.

If we don't PASS IT ON, we might miss these moments, these smiles, these feelings of doing the right thing. The truth is, I'm unsure who was happier about the scarf, only time will tell, maybe one day soon enough we'll walking into Old Trafford and catch a match; I'll tell him to put that scarf away so he doesn't get jumped.