There is a park nearby with some outdoor hoops, so I headed on over. It was overcast and little chilly, but certainly not unbearable. The hoops at this park are adjustable, and all six of them had been lowered down to like seven feet. Okay neighbor kids, I get that you want to be able to dunk it, but do they all need to be lowered?
I was thinking ahead though, and brought along a wrench and step stool. In order to raise the basket up, there is a little hook that needs to be cranked. So I got on my step stool, tightened my wrench, and started cranking. And cranking. And cranking some more. It felt like the hoop was raising about a millimeter a minute.
Finally, after about fifteen minutes of cranking and resting (so my arms didn't fall off), the gauge on the back of the standard pointed to 10 feet. I grabbed my ball and tried a shot from the foul line, but my arms were so tired from all the cranking that all I hit was air. I chased the ball down, and lobbed an innocent layup. However, the wind had started to pick up, and blew the ball off course.Then it started to snow.
4 comments:
Then next time you go back to play again, they'll be lowered back to 7 feet again.
I don't know why, but this made me think of the Jack Handy deep thought:
One thing kids like is to be tricked. For instance, I was going to take my little nephew to Disneyland, but instead I drove him to an old burned-out warehouse. "Oh, no," I said. "Disneyland burned down." He cried and cried, but I think that deep down, he thought it was a pretty good joke. I started to drive over to the real Disneyland, but it was getting pretty late.
Didn't your dad do something similar with the ice cream store when you guys were kids -- saying it burned down?
And I think the basketball hoop story is very sad. Though I imagine the community association has a better way to raise and lower the hoops, if only you would ask. :)
I feel for you. I've been wanting to go walking outside but it's been too windy and cold and Trevor has a hard time breathing in the wind. I woke up this morning thinking maybe today I'll actually get to go for a walk..then I looked out the window at the snow coming down.
I did finally call the Community Association to ask them about it. They didn't seem to know of any special tool to make the process easier.
But I have been driving by the park every day, and thankfully, the hoop is still all the way up.
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