It’s brutal hot here in Florida… The rain decides every afternoon around 5:00 to cool that orange ball of fire. That’s how easy it is for my mind to wonder into Miami Dolphin land. I have visions of the (old) logo, flipper and Islamorada. Fishing from the railroad tracks under the old seven-mile bridge. Watching bottlenose porpoise chasing after green backs and pinfish with a cold beer in my hand, life was good!
I got my toes in the water
Ass in the sand
Not a worry in the world
A cold beer in my hand
Life is good today
Life is good today
Then all this damn growing up had to happen! College, marriage, kids, divorce, kid’s cars, kid's college, rat tracking up some damn corporate ladder until I looked back and wondered WTF happened to all the time? I don’t want to grow up anymore; I want to grow down. Oldness hit me like a brick in the face…
I turned jaded, a cantankerous fat ugly old man, with nothing good to say about anything. Sometimes we have to stop and look around, take it in, tell a beautiful woman you think she’s beautiful. Tell your boys who love your Miami Dolphin rants what you’re thinking. Tell the youngster who started this blog to be careful about getting old because it happens so fast…
It comes down to passion - passion takes energy - passion takes commitment - passion takes time, sounds too much like love to me and maybe that’s what I’ve given up on. I can’t love my Dolphins anymore because I can’t love anything. Maybe the whole damn thing got too commercialized and I watched it happen while I grew old.
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The kid’s dad wanted seats closer to the 50 yard-line but there was only one open next to me and one four rows back. Why did he buy them and sit the kid next to me? The kid didn’t know a cover-2 from 4-quarters, couldn’t see a zone when they tried to fake a man. The kid couldn’t see nothing… Danny saw it all, every time! Every time I pointed to Duper and screamed, “man – man!” The kid started to see…
He brought the “D” and I brought the “FENSE”. He brought the helmet and I brought the orange hair. He brought the passion and I hung on to it for a little longer. He grew into a teenager, then then a young man, always keeping his dad four rows back. One fateful game against the lowly Jets, he jumped up and cheered when THEY SCORED…
WTF??? Has the world gone crazy? WTF are you doing?
“The receiver is on my fantasy team,” he told me…
“Your what?”
“You’re too old to understand… I want the Dolphins to win but if they lose and my fantasy team wins, who cares if the Dolphins lose.”
That was the brick… Man that thing was harsh and hard, that’s when “old” bashed me in face and wouldn’t let go. I was “old.” I couldn’t separate this fantasy thing from the real thing. I couldn’t make a team with a Jet, or a Patriot, or a Bill, for that matter… I couldn’t make a team with a Raider, or a Redskin, or a Texan, or any damn team from New York! I hated the 49ers for winning Danny’s only shot leaving him in some also-ran category.
I didn’t renew the seats. The kid told me he was off to college and he wouldn’t be back for except maybe a couple games so they were not going to renew.
Like that, it was over. I was old…
When the corporate ladder came calling in Tampa, I moved on. Another kid started this site and somehow stole back some passion from me, now he’s off getting old… He doesn’t realize the thing that made him young was the passion. The thing that drew people to him was the passion. His passion will go other places for a while but then one day someone will call him old…
I’m just going back to Islamorada…
I got my toes in the water
Ass in the sand
Not a worry in the world
A cold beer in my hand
Life is good today
Life is good today
