The hoop

I don’t recall a time from my young life when I wasn’t constantly playing basketball, and I don’t remember our house without the hoop out front.

Whatever vague recollection there is suggests the basketball hoop was installed when I was in maybe second grade, when my dad, a pipefitter, brought home a two-ton cylindrical metal pole he had crafted at work and then somehow, with the help of at least five friends no doubt, forged that thing into the earth a foot or so from the street, and attached the hoop with metal brackets to its required 10-foot height. There were jokes, I think, about my dad having to do it this way, his way, which is to say making the dang thing at his work while probably using a blow torch and not just buying a regular basketball hoop like everyone else. (Those who’ve read the book might recall that my dad also crafted me a metal pole at work when I needed a shepherd’s staff for my fifth-grade Christmas play, so this was on brand.) It was, however, to his credit, perfect.

Like, actually perfect, for reasons that transcended the hoop itself. But let’s start with the hoop itself.

The simple and standard fact that the base was in the yard with the hoop protruding above the street—as opposed to say, a rollout hoop (which I’m not even sure they had in the early 80s)—meant no obstructions. No need to abruptly hold up after a layup so you don’t run headfirst into a pole, and no chasing the ball a mile down the street after it hit the corner of the base. These examples are less hypothetical than they are literally what I’m going through now, as a non-pipefitter dad who, a few years ago, purchased a rollout hoop on Amazon for (me and) my girls, which is better than not having a hoop, but also extremely frustrating and annoying for these reasons, and why my childhood hoop has been on my mind lately. (For the record, and to further contrast my hands-on skills with those of my dad, and most men, I couldn’t even put THAT hoop together. I had to call my buddy Pete.)

Anyway, about the hoop. The rim was level, sturdy, adequately forgiving but not so much so that you couldn’t adjust to the dreaded double rims of various local playgrounds.

Our street was also level—a modest incline in the middle—smooth, and not busy. Quiet enough to play uninterrupted for significant periods of time, but with enough traffic to keep you honest and alert, and familiar to passing neighbors. I always waved, I think, and even if I didn’t know the names of the adults who lived farther down the street, I knew their faces, their cars, and their work schedules. (These were the people who would later, inexplicably, become topics of conversations with my parents. “Mr. Calloway’s mother is in the hospital, so they had to stop construction on the roof.” I’m sorry, WHO?)

Speaking of cars and neighbors, once it was clear—and it was immediately clear—that I would be in the street playing basketball all day, every day, they honored that, and parked far enough away to clear the area. The ball still managed to hit their cars, all the time, and get wedged underneath mufflers, but these were Ford Escorts and Chevy pickups, and they were built for that, and nobody seemed to care, least of all me. Par for the court.

There was a distressed and crumbling curb on the far side of the street, but none on ours, where instead the ground sloped ever so gently toward the asphalt. This created a natural return. Over the years, the ball relentlessly eroded this area, killing any hopes of future grass but fulfilling its true calling as my trusty albeit inanimate passer. Conversely, if the ball rolled to the other side of the street, the curb, even in its dilapidated state, still stopped it, lifting it back up for easy retrieval.

Having a natural ball return was especially useful because—save for weekends when my dad would join me to rebound, help me with my shooting drills, and play me one-on-one until his hard fouls no longer had their desired effect—my work on this hoop was solitary, which was how I wanted it. It was my practice, yes, but also my escape from the close-knit quarters of a house my soon-to-be six-foot, two-inch lanky frame was growing out of; my fantasy where I was in the NBA and everyone I knew was in the stands; and my therapy for all of the hugely unimportant yet catastrophic events of adolescence. Most of the folks who lived nearby were older than my parents, and their children were out of the house, and there weren’t many kids my age on the street, fewer still who were interested in basketball. To this extent, the hoop might as well have been in my backyard. I was rarely interrupted, never having to worry about who might want to join me out there. An extrovert and an introvert rolled into one bouncing ball, out in public seeking alone time.

The best part? Our street light—there was only one every five or six houses, on only one side of the street, ours—was right next to the hoop, two feet away, towering over it as if its sole purpose was lighting my way. This enabled me to play at all hours, which I did, to my mom’s chagrin because she worried about neighbors being kept awake. Yet every time she asked them about it they reassured her that the sound of that bouncing ball was, for them, the sound of the neighborhood, of life, reminiscent of a time when their own kids were always outside playing, more comforting than disturbing. I agreed.

I was out there constantly, often multiple times a day, rain or shine, light or dark, hot or cold, although always—because this is the strangest thing that boys do: pretend they’re not cold—dressed for summer. I’m tempted to argue that no homemade hoop known to man endured more action, and to speculate on the number of shots it proudly withstood. But whatever its status within the pantheon of neighborhood hoops, I’m confident that the effort it took to install, the heavy lifting, and the money invested in its various parts, was well worth it. More than worth it. So worth it that it absorbed all of the exorbitant waste of us fickle kids—the unused toys, the desperately needed games with which we became instantly bored, the clothes deemed ugly—and still turned a profit.

Eventually, inevitably, the ball stopped bouncing. I left for college, returned briefly, then left again for good. Despite my dad’s pleas, my mom resisted having it taken down for years, when it was well past being useful to anyone and when time and rust had made it merely an eyesore. It finally came down last year. I was 40.

It does look strange when I go back now, the hoop not being there. I would say that this must have been what it looked like before I can remember a hoop being there in the first place, but no. Everything looks different now. Many of the neighbors who tolerated and even welcomed the sound of that incessantly bouncing ball have since passed, and their old houses are different colors. The street is not as smooth, and I don’t know to whom all the parked cars belong. Everything seemed so big to me then, and it now all seems so small.

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Our street now is wider, and relatively level, a similar traffic flow. The rim is probably an inch or two too high, and bends upward ever so slightly. The whole thing shakes—thanks a lot, PETE—despite the sandbag. I have to roll the hoop off the street and into the backyard before winter per the township.

 

I think, to some extent, we’re all trying to recreate our childhood for our own children, but some bigger and better version. I’m grateful that my girls’ love for basketball is genuine, and that this doesn’t feel forced, and that I get to do this all over again. But I’ll never be able to give them what I had, which is what I think every time we’re chasing the dang ball down the street.

Who knows. Maybe that's what they'll remember. And maybe they'll say it was perfect.