I played a lot of basketball when I was young. I played at the YMCA, I played at church, I played on any free time I had. Sometimes I played right after work and played 5 hours a night. I was a "driver". I was a person who ran the lanes and made shots most people would not think that it would go in.
As I grew older and as I moved away from the large cities and moved to the small town I am in now, the availability to play has diminished. At first, for a couple years we had at least one night some of us guys got together to play but over time it faded into a memory. People stopped wanting to play.
Now I am not as young as I used to be and due to my older body, I am not the driver I once was. I had to modify my game to be an outside shooter.
Since there is a lack of games, I am/have been feeling like I lost a long lost friend. I get to play a couple (1-3) games of a year but that does not fill the void.
I remember I was playing basketball with some co-workers about 2 years ago and I drove into the lane and made the basket. I felt young again and my co-workers were surprised that I still had “legs”. I tried it again during the same game and my feet and knees did not move when my upper body did so I ended up on my face. So I did some push ups to help cover my face plant.
Sometimes I wish I lived in a larger city so I could maintain the ability to play basketball. But I will never be as good as I once was. Those were the good old days.
