Lexi is her name, and basketball is her game. She proved it when, on the final day of the Penn State University Youth Basketball Camp, she walked off the court with a fistful of certificates and the Free Throw Champ Award. The latter degree netted her a special prize.
“I got to pick any ball I wanted from the rack, Grammie,” my 11-year old granddaughter announced. Unadulterated pride oozed through the Nittany Lion on her screen-printed camp shirt as she handed me her selection. A silhouette of a pouncing panther and the letters P-I-T-T were stamped on the knobby surface of the blue and gray ball. A PITT basketball at a Penn State youth camp? “Well, Grammie, there weren’t any Penn State balls on the rack,” Lexi explained. “Besides,” she added, “It’s just a basketball.”
But I digress.
A traveling carnival set up shop near Lexi’s neighborhood during basketball camp week. The thrills and chills of amusement rides, tantalizing aromas of sausage and fries, and games of chance and skill beckoned the young and young at heart. And no one was more beckoned to than Lexi. To celebrate her athletic prowess, the champ and her parents hightailed it to the carnival, directly to the basketball free-throw arena. The object of the game: make three baskets in a row. Lexi’s objective: to carry home the first prize, an item for which she simply salivated.
The crowd on that steamy June evening was sparse, and the line to the free-throw court was short. Clutching three tickets in her hand, Lexi positioned herself behind a burly sort whose orange muscle shirt barely contained his bulging pectoralis majors. Behind him, a tall, tobacco-chewing, jumpy twentysomething repeated, “No sweat, baby. It’s a sure thing, baby. You’re gonna have that prize, baby,” to a sweet young spectator.
Mr. Burly handed his tickets for three throws to the carney and stepped up to the foul line. He made the first toss. The audience of seven watched it circle and then fall through the net. Lexi held her breath when the second toss bounced off the backboard and dropped through the hoop. She didn’t release her breath until the third toss went over the backboard and fell into the water pistol gallery.
Mr. Hot Shot dittoed Mr. Burly’s first two shots and before his final throw ordered the ticket taker, “Get that first prize off the shelf ’cause my girl there is takin’ it home.”
NOT!
When the third shot misfired, frustrated Hot Shot and sulking Baby pushed their way through the crowd of 11 and headed to a nearby food stand to drown their sorrows in funnel cake. The carney snickered when Lexi approached the counter. He suggested, “Take your tickets over to the duck pond, honey.” Lexi didn’t budge. Eventually, he exchanged her tickets for a regulation basketball.
One basket – Bingo! The crowd of 14 gasped at her effortless toss.
Second basket – Swish! Right in! The carney sat up, and took notice when the crowd of 18 chanted, “You can do it!”
Third basket! – Field goal! Home run! Touchdown! Nothing but net! And the crowd of 22 went wild. The carney’s unshaven jaw fell to his hairy chest.
There was joy in Mudville that evening as mighty Lexi sauntered to the stand to collect the coveted first prize. “Bet you didn’t expect that, huh?” she said, perhaps a little too cocky.
The baffled carney reached for a small pink teddy bear on the shelf behind him.
“The sign says that’s the first prize.” Lexi pointed to a one-of-a-kind, made in Taiwan article anded in a bright-blue sash that self-proclaimed FIRST PRIZE. With a mob of 26 witnesses to keep him honest, the carney handed it to Lexi.
Reliable sources say the bright lights of the carnival that night paled in comparison to the light in the eyes of a little girl who strutted through the lot hugging a bright yellow, fuzzy-skinned, happyfaced, anatomically correct, five-foot-long …
Stuffed banana.
Not even a Penn State basketball could compete with that!
Nancy Clark resides with her husband in the suburbs of Export, PA, where she plays housewife, knits, reads, and occasionally turns out a down-home piece of literature.
