Aiden Archives - One Guy Outdoors

Introduction

(Note: This article is also available on the main page.)

I’ve talked on this page recently about how much tradition means to me and our family. We aren’t bound by traditions, necessarily. It’s just that when we find something that we enjoy doing, we tend to put it into a routine that becomes tradition from year to year. One of those traditions is the Hobby Railroad Show at the Big E. I don’t remember how we discovered it. It was definitely during Liam’s Thomas phase. Looking for something to do with a train obsessed preschooler during the long and gray months of December and January, we stumbled on the train show. It didn’t hurt that it was near my birthday and I don’t often ask for anything for my birthday.

Those first years we went as a family. It was even as recently as maybe 3 or 4 years ago that all five of us took the trip. Last year or the year before, it was just the boys and I. This year, the only one that was able to make the trip with me was Aiden. Christine made plans for Quinn to do a “Cookies and Canvas” event put on by their school’s PTO. Originally, Aiden was supposed to join him, but he backed out. She suggested that he come along with me to the train show since I was a bit upset that it looked like we might not make it this year. To my surprise, he said that he’d rather do that.

Journal

I started to hedge a bit this morning, saying things like that I didn’t want to pay $20 for two people to go since we used to pay $30 for 5 people to go and trying to push Aiden to go to the Cookies and Canvas. He held steadfast that he didn’t want to go and wanted to go to the train show. I finally relented as part of my newly found attitude of saying “yes, and…” when faced with a decision like that. I’m glad that I did.

It started in the car ride. When it is just me and one of the boys, I try to find podcasts that they will enjoy, too. Aiden is a pop culture freak and he likes all of the current music, so I could have gotten away with the radio. I, on the other hand, abhor most of today’s music, so I compromised with the podcasts again. I chose the “Playing with Science” episode about soccer and the leftovers of an “Only a Game” episode about Gene Mingo, a football player that I had never know before hearing the episode.

He was only slightly interested in the soccer episode, but it was mainly because he was reading a book. He did laugh a few times. However, the Gene Mingo episode hooked him and he flipped off the radio when they reported on Mingo’s accidental shooting of his wife. We talked about guns and the drugs that led to the accident. It was a good talk.

After the episode, he agreed that it was compelling. I told him how I like that show because it isn’t like most of sports media. Chris told me that he was going to go off on sports media in his latest article and he didn’t hold back. While Chris has a valid point about WEEI, ESPN, and much of sports media these days, that wasn’t exactly my point when talking to Aiden. I only listen to two podcasts that qualify as sports, “Only A Game” and “Hang Up and Listen.” “Hang Up” occasionally gets into the regular stories of the day, but they often give a fresh take. “Only a Game” more regularly goes off the beaten track and tells compelling stories that I’d have never heard otherwise. I like that. Much like the Patriots, sports media just bores me. I’m glad that Aiden was able to enjoy the show, too.

Aside from the ride, it was nice to have one on one time with Aiden. I don’t know when the last time that happened. As the boys get older, they become busier with friends and activities and it becomes more difficult to spend any time with them, never mind hours of uninterrupted time. It was time that he volunteered, at the sake of spending time with his friends, and that makes it even more valuable. Aside from that, it brought us together with a common interest.

This surprised me. Aiden is a “cool kid” in the purest sense of the word. He wants the latest sneakers, listens exclusively to popular music, wants to be with the in crowd. I never expected that he would be the kid who became the one most interested in model railroads. But, here we are. He said that he really wanted a train set and even had plans for where he would put it. In talking with Christine, I wondered out loud if it might end up being a Paddington 2 scenario where he eventually gets too cool for them and we’ll be left holding all of these expensive train cars. But, she said that he asked for one for Christmas last year, but waited until the last minute to do so.

He will grow out of them eventually. He may come back to them after he’s done with his teenage years and when he has kids of his own. But, and this goes along with why I went to the train show with him even though I wasn’t feeling it initially, he is interested now. I want to seize upon that interest and have something that we can have together. Something that will let us hold on to his rapidly dwindling time as a kid for just a little while longer.

Well, that got a bit heavy there. Sorry. The show itself was fun and informative. As soon as we walked into the first building, Aiden started looking at trains and I mentioned how they weren’t very expensive. The guy at the booth started talking to us about the different kinds of trains. I suspect that they don’t get much interaction from people outside of the community. Other than kids who just want to see the trains, when someone comes in and shows a serious effort to enter the hobby, they go out of their way to explain things and welcome them. We would do well to learn from that attitude, fellow nerds.

For the rest of the show, I was looking at various types of trains to figure out which one I want to get to let him try his hand at building. Another couple of people made us feel very welcome and answered our questions. We ended, as always, and as you may suspect, at a Lego display. I wondered aloud if they still made the powered Lego trains. He confirmed that they did, so that might be where we start.

Epilogue

I don’t know the last time that Aiden and I had one on one time that wasn’t interrupted by technology. It was an experience that I won’t soon forget and hopefully it had the same effect on him. As I stated earlier, you have kids and they are initially with you 24/7. They get older and go off to school, meet other people, and get other interests. You never know when that mythical “Cats in the Cradle” moment might happen, but you know it’s coming.

I’d like to put it off for as long as humanly possible. We have plans to go to at least one hockey game over the next two weeks before the season ends. I might just splurge and get tickets to both games because they have a buy one get on free deal going on now. I think Christine might have gotten it via email because she bought the tickets. A bit surprisingly (but perhaps not because it was Saturday night and college students have better things to do), the game wasn’t very well attended, so they’re pulling out all of the stops to get people to come.

Well, I’ll take advantage of their misfortune and get some time with Aiden as well. People tend to only take a look at those around them during times of tragedy. The Facebook posts “Hold your kids extra tight tonight and tell them you love them” only come after a terrorist attack or tragic fire. I don’t understand why you wouldn’t do those things each and every night. We only have a limited amount of time and don’t know when it’s up. Tell the people you love them every single day and just do the damn thing.

Prologue

This year has been one of change. I suppose I could say growth, but I don’t want to be too presumptuous or cliche. Earlier in the year, inspired by Aiden, I started a couch to 5K routine that is now a (roughly) four times per week habit. More recently, again inspired by Aide, I coached for his soccer team in our town recreational league.

Journal

Aiden has played soccer since he was in preschool. There have been changes through the years. The players have changed as they’ve grown, dropped out, joined other rec leagues, and started to play for their middle and high schools. Liam and Quinn, for example, both decided that soccer wasn’t their thing. The coaches have changed with their kids. Heck, the entire association has even changed from school district funded to parent funded.

Aiden has been ther through it all. Spring and Fall, every year, he has played soccer. That means, of course, that Christine and I have been there, too. We have cheered through heartbreaking losses and thrilling shoot out championship victories. From 90 plus degrees to spring and autumn rain storms and even the occasional day cold enough for sleet, we have seen every one of his games.

I am a fan of soccer. Along with hockey and basketball, it is one of my favorite sports to watch. I only mention this part because I have always been vocal at the games. I’m not the screaming, abusive parent, but I do like to “help” the kids out as much as I can during the game. This habit led several other parents to suggest that I coach. I declined because I know nothing about coaching. I don’t know how to run practice. I don’t know how to manage rosters. I can’t motivate. So, I continued my position as unofficial assistant coach.

Until this year. For some reason, when Aiden asked me this year, I finally said yes. Maybe he caught me off guard and I said “yes” when I meant “no”. More likely, I hoped they’d say, “No thanks, we are all set on coaches.” Sadly, they responded that they’d love to have me as a coach. At least I would get to coach Aiden’s team. A plus due to familiarity. Then again, there is the saying about familiarity breeding contempt.

I am happy to report that no contempt was bred. However, my lack of experience was a definite liability early in the season. I missed the first practice because of a conflict, then said before our first game to a friend, “I have a pretty good team. Pretty much just have to point ’em at the goal and let ’em go.” That proved to be a terrible assessment and we lost our first game 7-1 or something along those lines.

And, so, faced with practice after such a tremendous defeat, I did what probably no other coach would do. I just let them play. They passed to one another, took shot after shot at the goal with me playing keeper, and had fun in general. Recognizing my inexperience, the program director stepped in to save me and my team from myself. He ran a couple of drills with them. I tried to remain relevant to the practice by playing defense against them during their offensive drills.

Something seemed to have clicked during that practice. They played very well in the game following and only lost due to an overly punitive hand ball, as I wrote in my Facebook post after the game. I started to wonder if we might ever win a game all season. Quite the change from “point them at the goal and let them go”, for sure.

As the season wore on, I got better about running practices. I started to recognize what each player’s strengths and weaknesses were. Practically every single player showed up for every practice and game and they were all dedicated to improving themselves and their teammates. We finally did win 2 games, I think. We definitely won once and tied 3 or 4 others. Our final game before the “playoffs” was a tie against the team that beat us so badly in the first game, so it all came full circle.

I put “playoffs” in quotes because it was only a tournament in name. I figured out after the 3rd or 4th game that it literally didn’t matter if we won or lost with respects to the playoffs because the match ups were already set. So, the whole team arrived for the final day of the season with the understanding that all they had to do was win 2 games that day and they’d be champions.

They won the first game 2-1 and played their best game of the season. They talked to one another, made good passes, worked together on defense, and were supportive. They lost the second game by the same 2-1 margin, but the game was called (prematurely in my opinion) while we had possession in the offensive zone and were driving to the net. Oh well, it is only a rec league. The atmosphere of the day made it that much more fun as parents yelled and cheered for their kids, both teams showed great sportsmanship during and after the game, and it actually made me feel like I was going to miss coaching.

Epilogue

Maybe I should say that it made me feel like I might miss coaching. In all reality, I probably won’t miss coaching, per se, but it did end up being a fun experience. I got to meet and work with some great kids that I don’t get to do as much anymore because I’m teaching college. I got to put my terrible coaching skills into practice. But, I did learn from my mistakes and will be able to better focus my next team, I’m sure.

During the season Christine asked if I would consider helping out with the winter “skills and drills” season. Again, caught off guard and meaning to say “no”, I actually said “yes”. I guess I should thank Aiden for inspiring me to be a better person. He got me to run. He got me to spend time coaching and helping kids. In spite of what my father in law used to say, he’s turning out to be a pretty good kid.

Tag: Aiden

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Soccer Dad