Coon Rapids

I wish I was from Coon Rapids. If I get reborn I think I would like to try being from a small town with a name like Coon Rapids. Or Deer Droppings, or Moose Track River, or Black Bear Hollow. Can you imagine how cool it would be to grow up in a town like that, you know, play sports with all the same kids from elementary to high school? You would have your rival towns , like Stone Bridge, and the coach would gather all of your little nine-year old heads in a huddle before the game and say something like this:

“Well boys, here it is. The most important game of your young lives so far. No pressure though, huh?” He would laugh off his deep seeded frustration that still burns from when he lost to the Stone Bridge Maulers back when he was a wee little boy. He bends down to look them in the eyes, “We just gotta play our game today boys, you know, play like there is no tomorrow, like the whole town of Deer Droppings is counting on you, and they are boys, they are. Deer Droppings hasn’t been this excited about a…well, about anything, since Miss Johnson sold one of her tea-cakes to a buyer in New York, but that’s besides the point here boys…The point is…the point is,” he pulls them in close, “I need this win boys. I NEED THIS WIN! More than you know, but no pressure, no pressure. Hey, I am rambling here, lets just go out and play huh. Hands in, hands in, one two three, GOOOO DEER DROPPINGS!”

The little boys look around at each other, a moment they will remember forever; that weird speech their weird coach gave them before they got drubbed by Stone Bridge back in fourth grade. The year he started his drinking. It’s the kind of moment they will all share together again at their grad-night party, sitting around the table eating Ms. Johnson’s famous tea-cakes. Only in Deer Droppings.

Coon Rapids is in Minnesota. Their team is in the Super Regionals of the little league world series. They got me thinking about how I would like to live in a small town at some point in my life. Maybe just for a week or two. But small towns like that seem different then suburbs, they seem natural, like Granola. Whereas the suburbs is processed and sugar coated like Trix. I guess living in DC for the last two years has made me think about what I want, or more appropriately, where I want to spend my time.

When we were young you didn’t really have a choice. You just lived wherever you were told to live. Sleep here, eat there, play there, and all that. It was simple. Now there is all this freedom that the soul craves for, all these choices you can make about how you are going to obtain happiness. What is that going to look like? At times I wish I could live in multiple places at one time. Part of me in the city, part of me in the country, part of me on the west coast, part on the east coast.

Coon Rapids is falling apart. They just gave up four runs, their shoulders are slumped, their body language says they have already given up. The way kids do. Their coach needs to call a timeout, look’em square in the eye balls, hand on the best players shoulder, and say those words they will remember for the rest of their lives. Those words that, oh, they just let another run score…those words that they will laugh about as they share a beer at the local Coon Rapids watering hole in their mid-thirties. Only in Coon Rapids.

~ by kevinthomas on August 11, 2007.