XplanaZine

Transcript

I was thirteen-years-old the first time I had a cast. I strained a ligament in my knee and the orthopedist, realizing what an active kid I was, theorized that putting a full cast on my leg would be the best way to slow me down and let my body heal a bit. I don’t think I’ve mentioned that the good doctor was very conservative and made my mother promise that she and my father would do their part in making sure my leg got all the rest it needed. That’s an important part of the story.

At any rate, I got a cast and began suffering the adverse social side effects of not having pants that would fit and not being able to run around with my friends. My parents did their best to keep me off my feet and, in a nutshell, life got really boring.

Thankfully, there was a weekend church retreat coming up and that coincided with my parents taking a trip to Las Vegas and I could see a light through this upcoming window of opportunity. Without my parents there to monitor me, and since I had all that energy pent up from being inactive for a couple of weeks, I spent my time fairly aggressively and actively at the retreat. I drug myself up hills and through rivers. I opted not to use my crutches very much. And I did some creative tailoring on my cast so that I could move around easier.

Now, being the honest kid that I was, when I went to the see the orthopedist the week after the retreat I told him about all the great fun I had had the previous weekend. He seemed interested and his only response to me was that I would have to wear the cast an additional four weeks before beginning rehab. Little did I know, however, that he was actually appalled by my parents’ lack of supervision. So when my dad called him later that same afternoon from Las Vegas, the good doctor was already primed to give him a piece of his mind.

So you’ve got the basic picture. The doctor’s mad at my parents and my parents really are concerned about my well being. My dad is in between meetings at different hotels and restaurants in Las Vegas and needs to find a phone to call the doctor and see how I am doing. Eventually, he finds a pay phone on the street.

Of course, the doctor can’t wait to tell my father how irresponsible their care has been and to tell him about all of the crazy antics I pulled over the weekend. To make matters worse for my father, the only pay phone he can find on the street that afternoon is next to a strip club. So, as he is trying to explain the the orthopedist that he and my mother really are good parents, a booming voice begins to blare. “See the naked ladies! Step right up and see the naked ladies!”

Needless to say, my parents were never able to convince the doctor that they weren’t a couple of ne’r do wells.

I thought about this all over again recently when the New York Times ran an article about a rise in injuries for young athletes. It seems that parents are starting kids in serious athletics earlier and earlier ever year. Orthopedists are seeing young teenagers with sports-related injuries that were once seen only in professional athletes in their mid-thirties.

The article itself is interesting enough and is a good warning to parents in general about priorities. But it made me think about priorities in a larger context as well.

I mean, come on, if we’re going to cause unnatural damage to our children’s bodies through overzealous and excessively strenuous workouts, why not attack a sport or an ideal that is just a bit loftier than softball? Why not apply the same intensity to academics and their brains?

When are we going to start seeing more kids in doctors’ offices with Mark Twain Syndrome (MTS)? This is a general stiffness in the neck that is caused by the repetitive head movement required when reading. MTS is caused by reading in excess of 2,000 pages per week over a period of ten years.

And when are we going to see more cases of Blogger Bone Dysfunction (BBS)? BBS is a degenerative joint disorder (generally in the fingers) that is related to excessive extended keyboarding. BBS is associated with writers who create long, extended journals or compositions as opposed to recreational instant messages.

Obviously, I’m speaking tongue-in-cheek here. I don’t really want to see kids injured or in doctors’ offices. But I would, just once like to see a culture as dedicated to learning as it is to sports. Yes, I played sports as a child. I played baseball all the way through college and it was a pivotal part of my existence for those years. But I have wished over and over again that I had spent as much time exercising my mind. I wonder where I would be today how my life would be different if I had spent an hour reading for everyone I spent with a glove on my hand.

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