Yesterday was the boy child's first practice for flag football.

I worry that he may have inherited the athletic skills that lead his father to a successful career in graphic design with blogging as his primary hobby. His first chance to catch a pass didn't end well, but due only to a poor throw from the coach. He caught the second one.

Practice is at one of the local parks and there are seven or eight teams of different age groups having practice at the same time. Our team tried three different spots before any real practicing started. They moved around to find enough space with grass. We started out by the edge of one of the baseball fields. But a group of six and seven year old boys in cleats - in dirt - was not a combination that was going to produce a lot of rapt attention on the coaches. The only good thing about that spot is that there were bleachers to sit on.

The bad thing about that spot is that there were bleachers to sit on. It took about three seconds for the two guys behind me to get into a discussion about evil oil companies, corrupt financial institutions and how Halibushitler does their bidding. Somehow flag footbal practice became an offshoot forum of the Yearly Kos.

I held my tongue and let them prattle on as they complained about the salary of the CEO of Countrywide Financial. They seemed to have no idea who the CEO of Countrywide is, Angelo Mozilo. Nor did I get the impression that they had any idea how much he was paid ($57 million). I am certain they didn't know that he founded the company 36 years ago and has been the CEO for the last seven years. (Admittedly I did not know the exact amount of his compensation or the exact number of years since he founded the company until I Googled it, but I wasn't the one complaining about his salary either.) I wanted to ask these two if they owned stock in Countrywide. I wanted to ask them if they sat on the Board of Countrywide. I wanted to point out that the compensation of the CEO was set contractually between the CEO and the Board. I wanted to tell them that their opinion about how much the CEO of Countrywide was paid was worth precisely nothing. I wanted to tell them that if they didn't like the way the Board of Countrywide compensated executives then perhaps they should continue to not buy stock in the company, and that they should not do business with Countrywide. But I was here for practice not politics. And these guys were so thoroughly steeped in their mutually reinforced ignorance that the effort would have been wasted.

As for the boy child - it is looking almost certain that he will athletically exceed his father. Though admidedly the bar on that isn't too high.

UPDATE: They had a little scrimmage and the boy got a turn at quarterback. His first pass was intercepted and run for a tuchdown. But in his defense every boy there was in a different t-shirt and there was no way to tell who was on which team and the boy who caught it may have been on his team and just ran the wrong way. He threw a catchable pass, and that counts.

Posted by: Stephen Macklin at 04:30 PM | No Comments | Add Comment