The Apple Doesn't Fall Far From the Tree

Football season has finally come to an end. We were all so excited for the season to start and I think we are all kind of glad it has ended. This season has been a lot of ups and downs. This was Elijah’s first year of tackle football. All last year while playing flag, he talked mad junk of how he was going to tackle hard when he got to play “real” football. Fonzy was too excited! While playing tackle at home with Ezekiel and Fonzy, Elijah showed out! And we just knew he was going to kick butt out on the field. Well, football season started and the coaches loved Elijah. He was playing with 7yr-10yr old and they were prepping him to be the back-up quarterback. Well, to make a long story/season short, Elijah did not play to his full potential and Fonzy hated it! During and after every game Fonzy would get discouraged and sometimes downright furious! Both Elijah and Ezekiel have the talent, but for some reason when they got out on the field, they acted as if they had never played football. At home, they would try and kill each other when tackling, but would barely hit anyone out on the field. The rides home were filled with Fonzy asking the boys what the problem was? Why wouldn’t they just play like we knew they could? The boys never had an answer. There was one thing in particular that Elijah did that drove Fonzy nuts! He would trot off the field with his arms up at his side, like the picture above. One day while at a game, Fonzy had had it! He grabbed Elijah by his face mask and told him he better not ever see him trot off the field like that again and slapped his shoulder pads really loud. Elijah started to cry, and walked back to his team. I thought one of the Moms standing nearby was going to call the cops. You should have seen the look of horror on her face!

Every week after the games, Fonzy would say he was going to find one of his old teammate’s dad who had tapped all the games. He would tell us all how when he played football, he was a superstar, and would never miss a tackle. We heard how no one was able to beat their team and they may have even won a championship.

Well, true to his word, he found the teammates dad still in Odessa and his mom picked up the tape and FedEx it to us. Fonzy was so excited, he told his mom to send it overnight. So the Friday before Elijah’s last game, Elodia calls and tells me she has overnighted the tape for $45! I threw a fit! $45! We could have waited a few days for that tape, but Fonzy couldn’t wait. After Elijah’s game that Saturday morning, we rushed home to see if the video was there and it was. Fonzy couldn’t get inside fast enough. We gathered in the spare bedroom where the VCR is to watch the greatness that was Fonzy V. We fast forwarded the beginning of the tape which was old family videos and found the football footage. We saw Fonzy in his childhood, all suited up in his football gear. (picture below) We saw him tackle a few people, but we also saw him missing a few and then SITTING on the field. Oh my gosh, if Ezekiel or Elijah had ever sat on the field during a game that would have been it! Fonzy would have lost it! But the moment that was worth the $45 to send the tape was when Fonzy trotted off the field in the EXACT SAME WAY Elijah had! Oh my gosh, I laughed so hard! I tried to get Fonzy to rewind the tape, but he refused. I swear his little trot off the field was the spittin’ image of Elijah. The one thing that made him the maddest, he himself did! It was priceless!

One of Fonzy’s favorite saying when he meets the parents of the kids he teaches is, “I swear the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree”

Nope Fonzell, it doesn’t, it sure doesn’t :)