Friday, July 10, 2009

Middle Of The Road

My wife has a sense of humor. She proved it a couple of years ago by giving me a "funny shirt." It's a blue T shirt with a big red and yellow "M" just below the words "Mediocre Man." I have worn it a few times, always in her company, just to prove that I too have a sense of humor.
All of this cleverness aside, this shirt has given me pause over the past few days as I consider the continuing saga of Brett Favre and Lance Armstrong. Part of the reason that I don't wear my "funny shirt" is that I don't want to be reminded of the obvious. I'm forty-seven. Whatever greatness I might have once aspired too is now diminished, however slightly, by the onset of middle age.
That being said, I was feeling mired in my mediocrity on Sunday as I hobbled around on a bruised heel. I thought of Brett Favre, on the cusp of turning forty, on the horns of the dilemma: Should I choose to put myself once more in harm's way, or should I retire comfortably, and look forward to the next mountain to climb? Do I really need another football season's worth of physical punishment to prove that I am the Cal Ripken of the NFL? Will I be content to walk away from the game while I still can?
Many of the guys that could be chasing Brett this Fall are roughly half his age. The same thing could be said for Lance Armstrong. He's still got a couple years to go before he turns forty, but he does have that whole cancer thing to add a degree of difficulty. He's just a fraction of a second behind a guy who is ten years his junior. That's ten pedaling-a-bicycle-for-hundreds-of-miles-up-and-down-the-Alps years. Seven of those would be years in which Monsieur Armstrong won the Tour de France.
So what do these guys have left to prove? Well, I guess that's simple enough: They don't want to wear the shirt. Fine. Maybe the next time they're both in town they'd like to try their hand at Guitar Hero - Medium.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think U R GR8.

-CB

RK said...

You have got to be kidding. You have a wife & kid, a career that has some real value, and a big beautiful house in California. If life is a competitive sport, you've already won.

Anonymous said...

Why do men have to "prove" they are important by doing dangerous, stupid, and potentially lethal things? To quote the Godfather, "A man who doesn't spend time with his family, is truly not a man"

Gigi

Kristen Caven said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Kristen Caven said...

Obviously it takes a certain super-strength to wear a "Mediocre Man"
shirt with such grace and style... not everyone can pull that off!

(For your next birthday I'll try to find you an "Iron(ic) Man" t-shirt.)

Anonymous said...

Look inside this book

On the Wings of Self Esteem (Paperback)
by Dr. Louise Hart (Author), Kristen Caven (Illustrator)