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To: Dalin who wrote (5630)	9/13/2001 7:53:14 AM
From: Clappy	Read Replies (1) of 104155

Hey dude. I put a small flag on the antennea of my car. Somehow it felt like I was doing something. Stuck one on my mail box out by the edge of road in addition to the large on attached to my house. I like the colors Red, White, and Blue waving in the wind better than seeing a black band worn around the arm. After I got home from work yesterday I had my son's football practice. I wasn't sure if was going to be cancelled or not due to the mourning. Instead this was one of the first practices that we had every single kid in attendance. All 19. Almost twice that number in parents. Even a handful of grandparents. It was like everyone needed a break from the News on TV. In the beginning the all the parents and coaches mulled around each other sharing their story of where they were and what they were doing at the time of the tragedy. Everyone someone who knew someone who was missing or someone who got incredibly lucky. Stories of how a person had missed the early train or got stuck in traffic and their life was spared. Other stories of the painful waiting for a phone call. Some looking to place blame. Others asking why. Meanwhile... The kids are playing their personal version of pre-practice flag rugby or Australian rules flag football. Not a care in the world other than catching the fastest kid on the team with the ball in his hands. It was like watching a school of fish changing directions as quickly and in perfect synchronization. Ear to ear smiles on 18 faces and one face of determination as he tried his hardest to get away. These smiles eventually began to magically appear on the faces of the parents. The first smiles these people have had in two days. Practice began. It had fully enveloped our minds. All of our thoughts were on teaching those children. Absent was the sound of the quick theatrical news theme music followed by the phase "Breaking news on the Attack On America!" No pictures of reports about anything. Just a bunch of kids being kids. Goofing off. Having fun. Chasing each other in circles and laughing while doing so. The desire of getting them to line up in perfectly straight line and getting them not to jump before the ball gets snapped, soon becomes replaced with, "Oh well, close enough... Hey look at that little guy go! Run! Run! Defense Get the Flag! Get the flag!" Then the littlest kid on the team makes a diving grab and pulls the strip of red flag material off the running backs waist. "Excellent job!!!" "Let's do it again!!" This went on and on. The terrorist attack was forgotten. Completely gone from our minds. Practice lasted until it was darker than it had ever been outside before for us. No one wanted to leave. We got back into our car and went about our normal routine of talking about practice and giving my son praise for improvement and discussed how to do certain things better. My son had done particulary well today where all of the coaches had noticed and paid him compliments. It really felt good. We got home and my youngest son went into the living room and clicked on the TV. It was back. Still there were those pictures and reports. Damn! That's when all of this hit me. I had escaped from it for two hours. I had completely forgotten about it for two hours. Those two hours were beautiful. I hope that they do not cancel the sporting events this weekend. We as a nation need to be able to get a small break from the pictures and reports for just a few hours. I hope they let the games be played. We need them. If the games can't be played due to security reasons then I hope people get to get out and do the things they like to do. -Clappy P.S. I've got another parade this weekend in town. All of the different teams and schools are marching. This one is going to be very special. I bet there will be a large turn out.

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