Badminton

I typed the following blog entry on Monday and when I went to check the spelling before I posted it - poof – it vanished. So, I’ll try again. If it vanishes this time? Tough.

When I was in my early teens, my dad made a badminton court on the far side of the creek. It was actually part of the woods behind the house so he had to clear the land first. In the beginning it was just a place to leave the badminton net set up and it not be in the way. It quickly became the entertainment spot for our family and my parents’ friends. On Saturday around noon folks would start showing up to play. Soon people were buying their own rackets – to be more professional, yeah, right.

The afternoons would evolve into cookouts with everyone bringing stuff to help make the dinner. Dad got really good at cooking outdoors and starting building his own pits for slow cooking roasts and other stuff. His specialty was Barbequed Beef Brisket. Yummy.

The badminton court started improving. It was leveled and maintained and Dad put lights around so that we could play into the night. I was the only person I knew who attended parties with adults (no one seemed to have kids) and stayed up till all hours of the night playing badminton or Crazy Rummy. Sometimes the group would decide to go to an all-night diner for breakfast around 3 or 4 and if my brother and I had already gone to bed, they’d wake us up and take us. It felt downright sinful eating pecan waffles at 3 in the morning.

These parties went on for a few years and were mostly fun. (There were a few times that someone would have too much to drink and they wouldn’t be as much fun as they thought they were and I’d go to my room to get away.) One thing happened that I never told Mom or Dad because they would have tracked the dude down and killed him dead. I was 14 – 15 and one of their friends was in his early to mid 20’s. He’d been flirting with me for weeks, which I found flattering but wasn’t worried. After all, it was my parents’ house and there were tons of people around. Anyway, one night he grabbed my arm as I went by him in the living room and he kissed me. This was technically my first kiss but I wasn’t as happy about it as he thought I would be. I got away and from that point on made sure I was never alone with him again. I don’t think my parents noticed that or the fact that I didn’t have conversations with him anymore. If they had ever known – yikes – that guy would have been pushing up daisies and one of my parents would have been in jail. Yep, that’s one secret that couldn’t come out until after they died.

Overall I have great feelings when I think about the fun times we had with that badminton court and the fact that I was part of the grown-ups even if it WAS by default since I lived there. I had a great sleep-over for my birthday during that time period where we stayed outside all night long. It was a blast.