Tom Talks

How you know you're old, part 56:

You're walking down the street with the leash attached to the obnoxious Boston terrier in your right hand. The neighborhood kids are playing football in the street with a Nerf looking ball. The quarterback is looking for his receiver but his receiver is covered.

So you extend your left hand the way you have 1,000 times before. I'm open.

I haven't played football with my kids for years, but when they suggested I be everlasting quarterback, I knew it wasn't because of my arm. It was because I couldn't keep up with them when I was the defensive back.

I had to give up pick-up basketball because I dishonored the game. I was out with some other veteran Dixie scribes at the NCAA basketball tournament in Lexington, Ky., and at 2 a.m. we made a solemn vow to meet for hoops the next morning. Like fools, we all showed up.

I was running 30 miles a week at the time and I swore I would run those old Kentucky guys into the ground. I played two games, and if there had been a box score, it would have looked like this:

FGA 11

FG 2

REB 4

AST 3

TO 7

F 23

I have not played a serious game since.

So I can't play competitive basketball with the locals and my kids won't let me play defensive back.

But here I am, walking down the street. These kids keep up with sports. Certainly they know about the legend of (one name) Vinny.

I hold up left hand high -- I'm the same height as Steve Smith -- and the kid throws a pass, a tight spiral, considering the ball is Nerfish, to another kid.

"I was open," I say.

The kid's look suggests that if Ben Franklin, Christopher Columbus, Abe Lincoln, Jim Thorpe, Henry Ford, Danny Ford, Mick Jagger or Magellan were open, he wouldn't throw to them, either.