Matthew Osborne
It’s Father’s Day week, and no doubt about it, I am going to have a rough time.
It’s been a little more than a month since my Pops passed away, and the quiet has been deafening. Nobody called my cell phone more than Pops, and now, having unlimited minutes hardly seems like a necessity.
But I don’t want our readers to be bored by another column about me being sad. Instead, I’ll share some top Pops stories that are always worth sharing again.
• One night, Pops was in a bar listening to some live music and having a good time. He went to the bar for some peanuts and motioned to the bartender. “These guys are pretty good. But do they play anything but The Drifters?”
“Those are The Drifters,” the bartender deadpanned.
• Another night in a bar (why do stories always start like this?), a large group of men were beating up on one man who was on his own. Pops entered the scrape to “even” the odds, and he helped run off the pack of wild bardogs.
The man thanked him for saving him from a severe beating and introduced himself as Jim Jensen. Football fans from the 1980s may remember Jim from the Miami Dolphins, where he was a tight end, special teamer and part-time quarterback for 12 years.
• I was shooting baskets in front of the house one afternoon when Pops came wandering out to talk to me in his bathrobe with no shoes on. He called for the ball and started shooting, and I rebounded for him while we talked. He was shooting from about 12 feet on the baseline, and I realized after a while that he had not missed. So whatever he was talking to me about, I became more interested in counting his shots.
He made 30 in a row … in his bare feet … while carrying on a conversation about, heck I don’t know. Who cares? He made 30 straight!
Ridiculous.
• We were lucky to have Pops for all the years we did, seeing as he was diagnosed with cancer 20 years ago. The doctors did not even know what kind it was, and after they removed it, they said if it ever came back, there would be nothing they could do.
But it didn’t, and that gave Pops a chance to enjoy a lot of time with his grandchildren, so we thank God for that.
But in 2004, we hosted a Relay for Life basketball game in Robbinsville, N.C., and I asked Pops to coach our community team. It was a coed game with us facing off against the varsity players, though reflecting on it now, I am not sure why we thought we had a chance.
Anyway, Pops didn’t know many names, so I helped him facilitate the coaching and acted as a quasi-assistant.
With about 12 minutes to go in the game, Pops shouted out some instructions and came back to the bench. “Good, we’re in solid shape. We have gotten everyone in during the second half and now we can play our starters and try to win this thing.”
A few seconds went by before I said, “I haven’t played in this half.”
“Oh, crap, I forgot you were playing,” Pops said, giving me an obvious critique of my play in the first half.
More silence as the players ran up and down a couple of times. “Well, do you want to go in?”
“I don’t need your pity,” I responded. A few seconds later, I got up unilaterally and went to the scorer’s table.
After missing a shot, almost getting dunked on and committing a foul, I stood near half court during a free throw and looked at Pops. He gave me a look as if to say, “Well, are you done?”
I made the hand motion indicating I wished to be subbed, and our brief career as coach and player was over.
We lost, but being with him on that bench that one time was amazing. It was certainly better than playing against him.
Happy Father’s Day to everyone. Hug your dad.
Matthew Osborne is the editor of The Northeast Georgian. Reach him at 706-778-4215 or editor@TheNortheastGeorgian.com.