You will always come up big for me, Mr. MPG III
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Through all the trips to the mountains, expeditions to Disney World, fireworks shows in the backyard, and zip-line rides, there was one constant at the Goman house on Newland. Come rain or shine, and even lots of times when it snowed, you could hear the endless bouncing of the basketball as Mercer practiced his shots on the basketball court in the driveway. Shot after shot was put up, and many of them went in. Between shots he bounced the ball. He always dribbled the basketball with his left hand, and only his left hand, even though he did everything else; ate,
wrote, drew, blew his nose and hit baseballs – exclusively right-handed. It rarely rains in Colorado, but whenever it did, Mercer would put on his raincoat and a hat and still play. It doesn’t snow as much in Colorado as it does in upstate New York, where his Grammy and Bubba live. But it still snows fairly often and when it does Mercer is out there with a shovel and a broom clearing it off, and soon he is shooting away.
Far away from Mercer’s driveway, in the deepest part of Kazakhstan, some evil scientists worked away. They were unaware of Mercer, or
basketball, or Littleton. The only thing they knew about Colorado was that is where they make GPS Satellites, the machines way up in the sky that direct all the activity on earth. Why would they care about GPS Satellites in Kazakhstan? Well that was a real head scratcher, but it turns out that Kazakhstan as a country was on a pretty long losing streak. The country was poor, few people outside of Asia cared anything about them, and even Santa Claus no longer stopped there, because the weather was always bad and Santa’s reindeer did not get along at all with Kazakhstan’s
major export, the Gobi Desert Musk Ox. In fact, the musk oxen kicked up such a fuss when they heard the rein deer coming that they scared them away. It got so bad that Santa finally had to cross Kazakhstan off his destinations, and he felt so bad about it. So, what does this have to do with satellites, you might still be wondering? Well we all have to get old, and that was where Rudolph, he of the red nose who guides Santa’s sleigh, found himself. His nose no longer glowed bright enough to lead the sleigh anymore, and it got to the point where Santa switched over to GPS to guide his toy-filled vehicle. He did not bother to
tell anyone because he was having a hard time coming up with a jingle about being guided by a network of Satellites. Well, the Kazakhstanis were listening when Santa came by to explain why he had not come by, but they could not figure out how to get their musk oxen to play nice. They picked right up on the GPS story, though. One of their top engineers was watching a CBS Goodmorning segment about GPS Satellites and soon figured out that if he could only control the bouncing gyroscope that controlled all the GPS vehicles, he could redirect Santa’s sleigh to stop only in Kazakhstan. With just a little bit of trickery, they
could control the world’s entire supply of toys and everyone would come to Kazakhstan to play with them – they would be overrun with tourists and become a rich country. There was only one hitch, but it seemed like a small one.
You see the Kazakhstanis figured out there was only one thing in the Littleton area that bounced as regularly as the GPS gyroscope that controlled all the satellites. And what could that be? You guessed it – Mercer’s basketball. If they could get Mercer to stop playing basketball for just a few weeks, Santa and his sleigh would be theirs.
So, you can see it was no surprise that on the
same day in early December, both a miniature sleigh with 8 tiny reindeer (and one red nosed old timer) and a limousine with Kazakhstan plates showed up in Mercer’s driveway. The Kazakhstani’s were brief and to the point: “What can we do to get you to stop bouncing that basketball, young American” they asked. But Santa came to his point quickly as well “What ever you do, don’t stop bouncing that basketball, Mercer” begged Santa.
Mercer took a deep breath and considered his options. All of Christmas depended on him playing ball, so the Kazakhstanis could not home-in their
signal on the GPS gyroscope and take over Christmas. Santa needed him to keep playing so he could continue to interfere with the gyroscope signal. But Mercer knew he could not play ball forever. So, on his own he came up with an idea. “How about we play a basketball game, my team against the Kazakhstan all-stars, and if you win, I’ll take some time off, but if we win you will train your musk oxen to be nice to reindeer? Mercer thought that was fair, but Santa and his crew were wary when the Kazakhstanis agreed in such a hurry. They wrote up an agreement and Mercer signed quickly. Too quickly, Santa thought. There
was no way he could have read all the fine print.
It turns out Mercer should have read the fine print! The Kazakhstanis assembled a team of full-grown men, made strong by milking musk oxen and lifting Kazakhstani women, to play against Mercer’s team of 7-year-olds. It sure seemed the West Asians had pulled the Musk Ox fur over Mercer’s eyes. But Mercer remained confident! His team was doing well in the Foothills recreational league and his Dad was a wily coach. They practiced hard and got ready for the game, which was scheduled for the next
afternoon.
The game started with the All Stars scoring basket after basket, and they jumped out to an early lead, but Mercer’s mighty men were not about to lose control of Christmas without a fight. Mercer continually fooled his opponents by dribbling with his left hand, then shooting with his right. By the end of the third quarter, they were behind, but only by four points. But the all-stars had a few more tricks up their sleeve. While Mercer’s Dad was talking to the team during a timeout, the All Stars crawled under his huddle and tied their shoelaces together. As soon as the
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You will always come up big for me, Mr. MPG III
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Through all the trips to the mountains, expeditions to Disney World, fireworks shows in the backyard, and zip-line rides, there was one constant at the Goman house on Newland. Come rain or shine, and even lots of times when it snowed, you could hear the endless bouncing of the basketball as Mercer practiced his shots on the basketball court in the driveway. Shot after shot was put up, and many of them went in. Between shots he bounced the ball. He always dribbled the basketball with his left hand, and only his left hand, even though he did everything else; ate,
wrote, drew, blew his nose and hit baseballs – exclusively right-handed. It rarely rains in Colorado, but whenever it did, Mercer would put on his raincoat and a hat and still play. It doesn’t snow as much in Colorado as it does in upstate New York, where his Grammy and Bubba live. But it still snows fairly often and when it does Mercer is out there with a shovel and a broom clearing it off, and soon he is shooting away.
Far away from Mercer’s driveway, in the deepest part of Kazakhstan, some evil scientists worked away. They were unaware of Mercer, or
basketball, or Littleton. The only thing they knew about Colorado was that is where they make GPS Satellites, the machines way up in the sky that direct all the activity on earth. Why would they care about GPS Satellites in Kazakhstan? Well that was a real head scratcher, but it turns out that Kazakhstan as a country was on a pretty long losing streak. The country was poor, few people outside of Asia cared anything about them, and even Santa Claus no longer stopped there, because the weather was always bad and Santa’s reindeer did not get along at all with Kazakhstan’s
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