Robert Forto

West Virginia

NaBloPoMo: What sports did you play as a child?

by 2 Comments

I am participating in the NaBloPoMo challenge for May. It should be a fun one. It is titled: Play.

Today’s topic is what sports did you play as a child?

Truth be told I could play a mean game of jacks when I was a kid. I had my fair share of victories on the hopscotch court and ruled at kickball in my early years dominating the playgrounds of Highlawn Elem in Huntington, West Virginia.

I won a many hand of blackjack  and 5-card stud and was a mean thrower on the craps table. I could slam a game of bones and my UNO skills were just slightly inferior to my nun-chuck skills.

Growing up in the rust belt we were under the shadows of the Pittsburg Steelers, the Cincinnati Bengals and the lowly Cleveland Browns. Each of these pro teams were less than a days drive from my house.

Being this close obviously meant that little boys played football. We lived, breathed and ate football. Even at six, when I first put on a helmet, I was ready to rock and roll on the grid iron.

It was a different time back then. Little boys didn’t run to their mommy for every owie and daddy didn’t sue the league if his son didn’t get to play.

One of my fondest memories when I was a child was Thanksgiving Day in the second grade. I was playing on the Onslow County pee-wee football league and we got to play on Thanksgiving Day at Marshall Univeristy in THIER stadium on ASTROTURF.

THANKSGIVING DAY!

Thanksgiving day football is just about as much American as you can get. It is the day that the Lions play. It is the day that American’s team, (for goodness sake!) the Dallas Cowboys play!

Our little team got to play on a real field in front of fans in the stands. They announced our names on the loudspeaker and the scoreboard showed who was winning AND losing. Yes, like I said it was a different time back then. Games didn’t end in ties just for the self-esteem of the players. If we lost, we lost and we heard about it from the coach at the end of the game. THAT builds character. None of this crap, ” Johnny, go out there and have fun. Who cares if you win or lose…”

While the game on turkey day was awesome it was who was in the stands that made it great.

My dad was in the stands. He and my mom had called it quits a couple years before and my dad was now living in the coal mining town of Logan, WV with some lady named LaDonna.

Hmmm. My mom’s name was Donna. Go figure…

I digress. Let’s get back to the game.

Also in the stands was my mom and soon-to-be step dad, Mike. He was watching me play for the first time.

Mike was a U.S. Marine. He was a college football star at West Virgina. Yep that WVU. Home of the Mountaineers.

He also played linebacker at West Virgina Tech and was drafted by THE Oakland Raiders.

He decided to serve his country instead.

What does all this have to do with me and what sports I played?

A lot.

Mike taught me the game of football. He made me into one hell of a linebacker. The position I played all the way through high school.

Those skills carried over to a force to be reconned with on the ice rink playing hockey and one of the best short-stick center-defense lacrosse players in the suburbs of Washington D.C.

I was so tough on the lacrosse field that I was nick-named the Terminator. I had a haircut like The Boz.

I carried those skills with me to play hockey, indoor and outdoor lacrosse in adult leagues and even today I try to instill that same work ethic in my kids that are involved in high school sports right now.

Because kids, in life as in sports, it does matter who wins. Don’t let anyone fool you different.

I guess it was a different time back then.

Was it?

What sports did you play as a child?

______________________

Robert Forto is mushin’ down a dream in the wilds of Alaska. He and is wife are raising two teenagers at Forto’s Fort. 

Related articles
Enhanced by Zemanta

NaBloPoMo: Who did you play with as a child?

by 1 Comment

I am particpating in the NaBloPoMo challenge for May. It should be a fun one. It is titled: Play.

Today’s topic is who did you play with as a child?

I grew up, well at least until the second grade, in Huntington, West Virginia. My mom was a college student at Marshall University and my dad was in the “sales” business.

Back in the 1970s we did things a bit different than today. I guess it was a different time back then. Now some of the innocence is lost from childhood. That is sad.

My two best friends were Roy who lived across the alley and Micthy who lived down the street.

Our curfew was the street lights and my mom didn’t call my cell phone. She just yelled down the street, “time to come in!”

Micthy, Roy, and I played outside making forts and playing football. Not sitting in our rooms online with one ear-bud in our ear.

We got dirty and we had no idea what hand sanitizer was. Even though we were REQUIRED to bring two boxes of Kleenex to school at the start of the year, I never used them. Not once.

I rode my Big Wheel around all around town chasing my two friends down the block. Eventually I even rode my bike WITHOUT a helmet.

Micthy, Roy, and I would drink out of the hose and we even walked to school in Kindergarten. We didn’t worry about the boogyman and we weren’t afraid of the dark.

None of us were diagnosed as being hyper-active and we all ate too much sugar. In fact I was allowed to ride my Big Wheel to the Stop n’ Go and buy my own candy. I used to take in a dime and buy 10 pieces on the rack closest to the floor.

Now here it is 35 years later and I sometimes wonder what ever happened to Roy and Mitchy. I haven’t seen them since I left all those years ago but I am betting they turned out alright. Just like me.

_______________

Robert Forto is mushin’ down a dream in the wilds of Alaska. He and is wife are raising two teenagers at Forto’s Fort. 

Related articles
Enhanced by Zemanta

NaBloPoMo: Earliest Memory

by 1 Comment

I am participating in NaBloPoMo this month sponsored by the site, BlogHer.com. Today’s prompt is what is your earliest memory?

I have two of them actually and they both are about my dad.

It was 1977 or so and we were living in Huntington, West Virginia. I was about to enter school and my mom and dad were arguing all the time. Not something that a six year old little boy should be going through but I was a tough little guy and even then I thought I could take over the world when I was wearing my Aqua-man underoos.

My dad wasn’t home much anymore as he had taken a job in Logan as an insulation installer and there was talk of a word called divorce in the Forto house on Collis Avenue.

I remember when my dad was home he used to sit with me before I went to sleep and talk with me about little things that little boys find interesting, matchbox cars, Saturday morning cartoons and getting dirty in the backyard.

I was having bad dreams back then (of course I was!) and my dad used to give me his watch to hold on to while I slept. I can remember rubbing that old gold plated watch’s face between my little fingers until I fell asleep. There was an odd comfort in that– I can remember it to this day.

My dad also told me if I had bad dreams; to lay my little head on my pillow and “turn the channels” using an imaginary knob on the pillow and find a channel that had good pictures. Every night before I would fall asleep I would clasp his watch in one hand and find a channel on my pillow TV to take me to dreamland. At least on the nights that dad was home…

Another memory is one day my dad brought me over a pair of blue cowboy boots for my birthday. I think I had just turned seven and I was in Kindergarten. I wore those little cowboy boots EVERY day until the soles literally wore out and full of holes. I wore them to school. I wore them with shorts and white tube socks pulled up to my knees. I wore them to Sunday school and I think I wore them to bed from time to time too.

Here it is over 30 years later and I can not say that my relationship with my dad ever really flourished but I still think about him every day. I make it a point to tell my kids, who are now teens, stories and how important family is no matter what the circumstances. That is one thing that my dad taught me even if he wasn’t around. I wish he could have taught me more.

Related articles
Enhanced by Zemanta