April 9, 2014 Article

The Old Coot throws like a girl!

By Merlin Lessler

I throw like a girl! (an eight-year-old one at that) I know. I know. That’s a shameless, sexist statement. Especially for a guy with five daughters, none of who throw like a girl. But, I don’t know how else to put it. It shocked me to see how much muscle tone I’ve lost, on my slide deeper and deeper into old-coot-hood. I go around thinking I still retain some of the athletic abilities I possessed in my younger days, then a sudden awareness like this slaps me across the face.

It started as a simple game of catch with my eight year old granddaughter, Oriah. She’s a football player, a good one. One season she scored almost all of her team’s touchdowns. We were in the driveway tossing a football back and forth. Like all games of catch, it got boring after a while. That’s when I dug into my bag of grandfather tricks. The look left and throw right thing. The put the ball behind your back, bow down and quickly toss it over your head from the back using two hands. The roll it down your arm and bounce it off your bicep toss. Stuff like that.

That gets boring after a while too. Lame, is more like it. We finally got to where all games of catch get to, the “see how far you can throw it” stage. I’d throw it and then take a step back. She did the same. Eventually, we were as far apart as we could get without her bouncing it to get to me. That’s where the rude awakening came in. It was the exact same distance at which I could throw it without bouncing it too. I looked over at this sweet little girl; she smiled, and then said,  “Throw it back grandpa.” I stood there frozen. I was lost in the realization that I THROW LIKE AN EIGHT YEAR OLD GIRL! I made a mental note, not to play a game of “how far can you throw it” with her. She’ll gain arm strength and won’t want to play with a short-thrower.

She went in the house and sent her little brother, Atlas, to play catch with me. He's only six. I knew I could out throw him. But, it was not to be. He could throw it exactly as far as I could. I'm going to carry a sling with me in the future. Anytime one of the kids wants to play catch, I'll slip my arm into it and beg off. I may have lost my throwing strength, and now throw like a girl, but I still have an image to maintain!