Socks.  I’m in here to buy socks.  That is why I was in Kmart that afternoon.  I was about 12, and I had been living in a small resort town in New Hampshire for about 3 years.  I was distracted by the irresistible pull of a 12-year-old boy to the electronics/music department.  The 10 spot my father gave me was just the perfect amount to buy the latest K-tel mix tape, and the walkman clipped to my belt buckle was whispering, "Feed me.  Feed me."  But I was there for socks.

As I tried to work out what my father would do to me if I came back with a handful of songs by Flock of Seagulls  Billy Ocean, and Bananarama instead of a handfull of cotton tubes, I looked up to see none other than Stephen King right next to me comparing the extra large package of Haynes "crews" to a similar package with "Fruit of the Loom" at the top.  Let me pause here to say that everyone in my small mountain town has claimed to see Stephen King at the local Kmart.  He lived just across the Maine border, and our 13-store mall was the only relatively close place to "Shop Kmart Smart!"  I can't prove he was there that day, and maybe I did actually see him, but on a different day.  Either way, since I really only need one Kmart story, it seems appropriate to include Mr. King here.  Or maybe it's Dr. King that I am remembering.  I am quite sure Reverend King was NOT physically there on that day, but he was there with me in spirit as I felt a tug on my shirt from behind. 

I turned around to find a young boy of about 6 or 7 wearing jeans and a flannel shirt.  "Hey mister!"  I looked at him and pondered just when in my 12 years on the planet I had earned the title “Mister.”  He looked back at me with big, curious eyes and continued, “Are you a nigger?...”  
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"Am I a what?"
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If nothing else, the boy was patient.  He just stood there looking at me for what seemed like minutes waiting for me to process my answer.  First, I had to decide If I even heard him right.  Maybe he had just learned in school about superlatives and his world had just opened up for consideration of what is big, “bigger”, and biggest...
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Nope.  He said "nigger" alright.  So where did he even learn that word?  Wait!  Where did I learn that word?  My parents were white, I hadn’t read Huck Finn yet, and gangsta rap didn’t typically play on Magic 103.7 - Hits of the “White” Mountains.  Do black people just inherently know this word?  Has it become part of our genetic coding?  No time to ponder.  This upstanding young prodigy of New Hampshire’s finest is patiently waiting for an answer.  Okay, stay calm.  What would Martin Luther King say? 

 “I have a dream.  I have a dream that one day... children will live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their... 
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SOCKS?"

"I’m here to buy socks!”

I pick most things up quickly.  My hand eye coordination is good.  I love games.  I am resilient.  I am quick.  Most folks would tell you this is true about me.  Except when it comes to basketball.  Okay, so the town I grew up in in Ohio was all about football.  It didn’t matter what part of town.  I lived along the highway, but there was a big yard between my house and Jimmy Walker’s and the neighbors were kind enough to let us kids assemble for a friendly football game whenever we wanted.  If I went over to friends’ houses that lived in town, we still played football, even if it meant in a street or alley.  To be honest, I don’t even remember a single basketball hoop anywhere.  By the way, I have been holding on to this excuse for ever.

When I moved to New Hampshire in the 5th grade, I did play one season of basketball for my school team.  I don’t think I was bad compared to the other kids, but this blond kid named Robbie was really good and I seem to remember the basic strategy was if you found yourself with the ball, just pass it to Robbie.  He would dribble down the court and make the layup almost every time.  Not so exciting for the rest of us, so next winter, I just stuck to skiing.

Now there are lots of sports that I never played in school, and have played only rarely in my almost 40 years on the planet: bowling, badminton, softball, tennis, swimming.  But when someone says, “Hey JGo, I gotta extra racket, wanna hit some balls around?”  I am right there holding my own enough to make it fun.  With basketball, I’m that guy that everyone wishes they never actually asked to play.  Folks are polite about it, and they may even pass the ball to me once in awhile, but that’s only if they don’t feel any urgent need to score any points.

The concept seems simple enough.  You put a round ball through a round hoop.  I can throw and catch from my football days.  I have been juggling since grade school and can keep 3 tennis balls bouncing off the ground almost indefinitely.  I am one of the quickest dudes I know.  But for some strange reason, none of these skills seem to apply on the basketball court.  I can’t shoot, I can’t dribble.  My passes are too slow.  I am never standing in the right place.  I am horrible!  It makes no logical sense.  So in grad school, when most of my older, slower, whiter cohort mates asked me to play with them, I figured I would put an end to this madness of me not being able to play this favorite American past time that even the whitest black dudes I know can manage with a little skill.  If you were in my grad school cohort, and you are reading this right now, you are shaking your head because you know what a truly sad sight it was.  You would have thought I was blindfolded and playing with mittens and roller skates.