magicreptiles2 - The Monday Morning Memo

“‘We lost.’

‘So you’re what, five and eight?’

‘Four and nine.’

‘Well, there’s time.’

‘There’s no time,’ said Alfred. ‘Time is running out.’

‘Is your mother still there?’ Ted asked, a bit desperately, ‘Can you put her back on?’

‘Miles want to talk to you.’

Ted spoke to his other two sons, who had further scores to report. Ted felt like a bookie. They played every sport imaginable and some that (to Ted) were not: soccer, hockey, baseball, lacrosse, basketball, football, fencing, wrestling, tennis, skateboarding, (not a sport!), golf, Ping-Pong, Video Voodoo, (absolutely not a sport, and Ted refused to sanction it), rock climbing, Rollerblading, bungee jumping, Miles (his oldest, in whom Ted sensed a joyous will to self-destruct), backgammon (not a sport!), volley ball, Wiffle ball, rugby, cricket (what country was this?), squash, water polo, ballet (Alfred, of course), and, most recently, Tae Kwon Do. At times it seemed to Ted that his sons took up sports merely to ensure his presence beside the greatest possible array of playing surfaces, and he daily appeared, hollering away his voice among piles of dead leaves and the tang of wood smoke in fall, iridescent clover in spring, and through the soggy, mosquito-flecked summers of upstate New York.”

- Jennifer Egan, "A Visit from the Goon Squad," p. 211, winner of the Pulitzer prize

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