Nice Things

 "Destroyed" is a pretty tough word. It describes things that are no longer useful. It describes things that have had their usefulness terminated. It also describes a challenge for Mister Caven.

Over the Winter Break I received a text from my principal. It read simply, "They destroyed our soccer goals." This came to me on the Friday before we were set to return to school. My initial thought was to hop on my bike and ride over to see what could be done. 

I built those soccer goals. Not from scratch, mind you, but the scope of the kit that generated just one of the goals was sufficient to keep me busy for most of a lunch period. Back in August, kids hovered around me, asking if they could "help." They were anxious to have something other than the two orange cones we had set up at the end of the field through which they could show off their most impressive skills. It took me another afternoon to get the second kit put together and placed at the far end of the pitch. It did this with, or perhaps in spite of, all the "help" I received. 

As I have noted here on occasion, soccer, not basketball, football, foursquare or jump rope, is the main concession of our recesses. Before school. Morning recess. All three lunch periods. After school. There are not many moments in the day during which you won't find a ball being kicked by someone somewhere on our campus. These new goals were the most significant bits of game architecture on our playground, and as such they garnered both the respect and the inquisitive nature of our kids. "I wonder what would happen if I kicked the ball as hard as I could at the net from two feet away." "I wonder if this cross bar would support me." "I wonder if these things are meant to last." 

We were doing pretty good. We made it all the way to Winter Break with only a few minor repairs and fixes. Then Mister Caven did something not so clever: He left the soccer goals out on the playground for two weeks. Unattended. Which meant that they were attended to by miscreants. 

Hence the text. 

Which became my directive. "Destroyed" does not mean forever to me. I'll be working to reclaim the significant bits and pieces of the wreckage along with a discrete amount of duct tape to bring the plastic phoenix out of the ashes. 

That's the way we can have nice things: Duct tape.