FlashBack Fridays

 Over at The Family Behind His Badge, Mrs Deputy has started a new project of posting an old picture and writing the story behind it. I of course had to jump in on this, it will give me another excuse to use my scanner and I love anything that has to do with pictures and the past. Perfect for me. So here is my photo and story, enjoy!

 I'm taking this way back. With me being the youngest out of 3 kids I needed to be just like them, as any youngest out of the family would need to be, I assume. Both my sister and brother played soccer so I needed to play soccer just like them. My sister was on the varsity team at school and my brother was on a team with the city so I was dragged to all of their games, which probably implanted the desire for me to play myself. This picture is of me and my father. I must have been 4, maybe 5 years old at the time. The soccer ball that I am holding is a rubber one, I couldn't handle a real soccer ball yet and my parents weren't going to buy me a small one so I got a fake one. My dad was the most supportive dad out there when it came to me playing soccer.
As I got older and wanted to play soccer for real, he was the one who brought me to my first try out for a travel team. When I got accepted onto the team he was the one who drove me to all of my practices Saturday mornings. He used to sit on the sidelines while we practiced and chat with my coach. He worked a lot when I was younger and was never home until late at night so I never really got to see him, those Saturday mornings were our time to bond. He would have the truck all warmed up for me when it was a cold morning and we would drive into town and he would buy me some ice cream some times after a practice.
I believe I broke his heart when I decided that going in to high school, I was quitting soccer. I was ready to leave that phase of my life behind me. I wanted to have a social life and I knew that I wasn't going to go anywhere playing soccer, I didn't want to even try. It strained our relationship a lot. To the point where we barely spoke to one another. We've managed to come a long way from then, but he never lets me forget how good I was and how far I could have gotten if I had just stayed with it.
This picture is a nice reminder as to how dedicated he was to us.

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