I’m finally getting over this injured leg. The doctor was putting a bandage that prevented me from taking a shower all week. After complaints from several of my friends, she decided a different bandage would work just as well.

Now that I am better, I need to set new habits. I need to exercise every day. Just saying that I get plenty of exercise in my daily routine does not work any more. Honestly, if I only took in 100 calories a day, that would work. But since I have the diet of a small herd of cattle, I need to be more active.

I can find my old basketball at home. My old goal is now part of a fallen tree, but I can drive over to one of the parks the county now supplies and play there. I guess the kids the parks are built for are too busy playing video games to use the parks. Luckily, I’m not smart enough to be any good at the video games, so I still need a basketball court to keep me interested.

I grew up playing basketball several hours a day on my home court.

Honestly, I never was that good. But when I played at home, I was the best player on the court, unless my older brother Thom came out and played.

I created a team in my mind, made up of my friends. I had a completely imaginary guy playing center, whom I named Pete Peterson, since none of my real friends were actually tall. The games were against the college teams I had seen on television and with me leading the way, my team somehow always won.

I was too young and stupid to dream about girls, but I dreamed about being a successful player on the basketball court. In real life, I pretty much failed with basketball and with the girls.

But I would spend hours each afternoon playing, never actually improving, but enjoying my fantasy world.

That’s one problem I will have playing on the public courts. Since my game pretty much was in my head, I would “pass” the ball to an imaginary teammate, who would then return the “pass” to me. If I go on to a public court and do that, people will think I’m crazy.

There was a girl who played basketball on Wednesday nights at our church. She was actually pretty good and would box me out for rebounds. I liked that and perhaps had some very un-Christian thoughts. She dominated me, but I enjoyed it.

Unfortunately, her much-bigger boyfriend started coming on Wednesday nights. He boxed me out, too, but it wasn’t nearly as fun.

Eventually I prayed a prayer asking for forgiveness.

“Lord, forgive me for enjoying bumping against that fine young lady. And while you’re at it, could you spare a bolt of lightning to take care of her boyfriend?”