Meanwhile, Back On The Farm

--Okay, Here’s The Plan--

Ricky was certain his Fourth-Grade year was going to be the best ever. He knew everything there was to know about football, and soccer, and he was sure he was the fastest runner in the county. He was going to win every race and every trophy, and he was never going to lose a game.

His Mom, Carol, was his biggest fan. Growing up, she had played every sport they would let her and even some they wouldn’t. She encouraged him to work as hard as he could, and to learn as much as possible about every game. He thought it was because she knew he was smart and wanted him to out-think everyone else playing the game. This was true, to a point. But she also wanted him to know everything about every game because he was little.

Because Rickey’s birthday was in early August, he was always the youngest kid in his class. The youngest, and the smallest. The one thing he had going for him was his speed. No matter how much bigger the other kids were, he was usually faster. This was going to be his secret weapon!

--Forward, Goalie, You Name It!--

As soon as classes started, Rickey was asking about sports.

“Mom, when is soccer?” Ricky asked, “I need to get my speed up for when football starts.”

“I know, sweetheart,” Mom answered. “I’m watching for it.”

After a what seemed to Ricky like a hundred years, but was really only two weeks, he finally got the note about Soccer Club from Coach Donnelly in his folder. As soon as Mr. Tasker stopped the school bus in front of his house, Ricky bolted across the lawn yelling for his mother.

“Mom! Mom! It’s here, the soccer club is here!” Ricky yelled, slamming the door open in front of him.

“Very nice, dear,” she answered. “Now look behind you.”

Ricky turned to see Mr. Tasker, who was really old, maybe even fifty, standing next to the bus, holding Ricky’s backpack. Ricky ran back and stopped just in front of the ancient bus driver.

“Sorry Mr. Tasker,” he said. “Thank you for remembering it for me.”

Mr. Tasker looked sternly at Ricky for a moment, but then couldn’t hold back his laughter anymore. “That’s okay, Ricky. You go on and get that permission slip done so you can show everyone how it’s done on that soccer pitch!”

“Thanks, Mr. Tasker!” Ricky yelled as he grabbed the backpack and made another mad dash for the house.

It was the last day that year he would be happy running into the house.

--Maybe You Can Help With The Nets--

Coach Donnelly smiled a gigantic smile. Ricky had to crane his head back to see it since she was so tall, but clearly she was happy he was there.

“Okay kids, Soccer Club is going to be a lot of fun this year! We have set up some games against Marlon Academy next door, so we can really show them our stuff.”

The Marlon Academy Swordfish were the arch-rivals of the McCain Elementary Mavericks. Ricky had been a Maverick his entire career, so now that he was finally old enough to play, he couldn’t wait to take them on.

Coach Donnelly put everyone through drills. Ricky was never worse than third in any of the speed drills, but when it was time to do passing drills and dribbling, the bigger kids all seemed to out-do him.

“What’s wrong, Ricky?” Paul Looper yelled from across the pitch. “Can’t kick the ball all the way over here?”

“Maybe it’s stuck to his foot!” Lila Jennings said.

“Is that it, Ricky?” Paul asked. “Is your foot too sticky?”

“Sticky Ricky! Sticky Ricky!” the kids started to chant, until Coach blew her whistle and broke it up.

Ricky hung his head and walked off the pitch to get a drink of water. It wasn’t his fault he couldn’t kick it that far yet. He was still growing.

When the practice was over, Coach Donnelly came over and crouched down next to Ricky.

“Ricky, we need to talk,” she said.

“What is it Coach? Do you need me to slow down a bit so the other kids can keep up?”

“Actually, I think we might want to think about waiting another year to play soccer. These other kids are an awful lot bigger than you and I’d hate to see you get hurt.”

“But I can play with them! Just give me a chance!”

“Not this year, Ricky. How about we let you take care of the equipment?”

Ricky fought back tears, but was determined not to cry. “It’s okay, Coach. I probably have too much homework anyway.”

--Sixty-Five Toss-Power Trap!--

Ricky did indeed have homework. More than he had ever had before. There were book reports, and math practice, and recorder and piano lessons and all of this was nearly, but not quite, enough to make him forget about soccer. That is, until football season rolled around.

Ricky and his Mom spent hours talking about football. Her favorite team was a college team because, “They’re too commercial in the pros,” she told him.

Ricky didn’t care about being commercial, he loved the Atlanta Falcons. He had never been to Atlanta and had only ever seen them play on TV, but the first year he ever watched football, they went to the Super-Bowl and even though they lost the Super Bowl, he had been a die-hard fan ever since.

When the team announced their first practice, Ricky was ready. He had been running drills with Mom in the backyard and working on his routes and cuts and he knew he was going to be great. He just needed a chance.

At the first practice, the other kids were at it again.

“Sticky Ricky! How’s it going?” called Lila Jennings.

“This game’s too tricky for Ricky!” taunted Paul Looper.

Coach Donnelly shushed the other kids and called Ricky to see her again. He still had to crane his neck to see her face, but his time, he wasn’t sure she was smiling.

“Ricky,” she said. “I saw you were among the fastest kids, as usual, but football is a rough sport. Even though we only play with flags, I’m afraid the bigger kids will just run you over out there.”

Ricky was trying not to cry.

“Look, I can let you put out the cones, keep score, anything you want like that, but I really can’t put you on the field right now. You’re just too small.”

Once more, Ricky hung his head. “It’s okay, I have a recital later this year and I should practice more anyway.”

--He’s Really Good, For His Size!--

Ricky tried out for baseball, basketball, even wrestling that year. But every time, the message from the adults was the same: “You’re just too small, we don’t want you to get hurt.”

And the message from the kids was worse: “Sticky Ricky! Sticky Ricky! Can’t play the game ‘cause it’s far too tricky!”

And even though he really did practice for his recital, and even though he won a blue ribbon for playing Fur Elise on the recorder without squeaking once, he was heart-broken about being kept from his favorite sports.

On the last day of school, Ricky was so sad, he forgot his backpack on the bus again. But Mr. Tasker didn’t have to run after him, because Ricky was walking so slow.

Mr. Tasker just gently spoke, “Did you forget something, son?” and Ricky turned and silently gathered his things and walked into the house.

--Hay!--

The day after school let out, Mom sat Ricky down.

“Ricky, I have a treat for you.”

“I really don’t feel like a treat, Mom,” He said.

“Well, I think you’ll like this. I just got off the phone with your Grandpa in Nebraska. He wants you to come spend the summer with him on the farm!”

“I can’t Mom, I’m too small,” Ricky sighed and started to get up to walk away.

“Oh, that won’t matter, Grandpa has enough work to do, there’s something for every size.”

Ricky wasn’t sure, but the idea of a summer on Grandpa’s farm did sound pretty cool. He hadn’t been out there since he was five and he remembered all the fun he had jumping in the hay and playing with the goats.

“You know Mom, on second thought, I think I’ll do it!”

So, with Mom’s help, Ricky packed his stuff and the two of them were on a plane the next morning.

--Look! More corn!--

Grandpa was just as big as Ricky remembered. He would have made Coach Donnelly feel pretty tiny, that’s for sure! And THEN who would be too little to play? The idea made Ricky smile.

“Daddy, it’s so great to see you!” Mom said, giving Grandpa a huge hug.

“Same here, Little Lambchop!” Grandpa said.

“Oh stop!” Mom said, but Ricky could tell she was kidding.

At dinner that night the three of them sat around finishing their chicken pot pies and polishing off fresh milk straight from the cow.

“Boy, that’s just as good as I remember when I was a little girl,” Mom said.

“I didn’t think I was going to like it,” Ricky said. “I guess I wasn’t even sure milk really came from cows until I saw it happen myself!”

“Well, you’re going to see an awful lot of that this summer I can promise you that,” Grandpa said, and they all laughed.

After visiting for three or four days, Mom went home and Ricky found out Grandpa was not kidding!

“Ricky, we have some work to do,” Grandpa said as he gently woke Ricky at five o’clock the next morning.

“What time is it?” Ricky asked, barely able to open his eyes.

“It’s five A.M., son. I let you sleep in because it’s your first day!”

“Five A.M.? Why would anyone ever get up at five A.M.?” Ricky asked.

And then he found out.

--Shucks, It’s Not That Hard.--

Ricky spent that summer doing things he never imagined he would ever do. Grandpa started him out shucking corn to sell at the local co-op. It looked easy at first, just pulling the big leaves off of each ear of corn and getting as much of the silk off as he could. But doing one or two or even three ears of corn may be easy; trying to do three hundred ears of corn before lunchtime so it can be delivered fresh was another thing altogether!

After that, Ricky would feed the goats, and chickens, and horses, and all of the other barnyard critters that had seemed so much more fun in cartoons. The chickens picked at him all the time. The horses would push him around and snort into their oats and make a big mess.

But the goats, were the worst of all! They would headbutt him and knock him on the ground over and over whenever he tried to feed them. It was as if they didn’t understand that he was doing something nice for them! After two weeks, Ricky decided he needed to have a conversation with his Grandpa.

“Grandpa, I’m just too small to do all of this work on your farm,” Ricky said over breakfast.

“That’s nonsense young man,” grandpa said. “It is not possible to be too small to work on a farm.”

“Of course you can,” Ricky told him. “Just look at me! I’m too small to do anything right! I can’t feed the chickens, I can’t feed the horses, I can’t feed the stupid goats. I can’t even play stupid football!”

“I was wondering when that was going to come up,” Grandpa said. “Listen, farming isn’t like football, son. The goats don’t care how big you are when you feed them, they’re just hungry. Same with the chickens and horses. You just get out there and do your best, and never quit.”

“So, you aren’t going to make me wait until I get bigger?” Ricky asked.

“Rick, if I made everyone wait to work on the farm until they were big, I’d have lost the farm by now. Your mom was feeding those goats when she was seven, and half your size. She just got more stubborn then them and went for it. That’s all I want from you.”

Well, if stubborn was what he wanted, stubborn was what he would get.

--Okay, Who’s Hungry Now?--

Ricky spent the rest of that summer feeding everything moved. Goats, horses, chickens, ducks, even cows! It was a little scary at first whenever he tried something new, but the more he did it the better he got at it, and the more confident he became. Over time, Ricky found that it was getting easier and easier to toss the big bales of hay and to lug the sacks of feed all over the place to keep the animals fed. And speaking of feeding, Ricky could not seem to eat enough for breakfast, lunch or dinner. He was always eating, but he was always hungry.

At the end of the summer, Mom came to pick him up and was stunned at what she saw.

“Daddy, what did you do to him?” she asked when she first saw him.

“Same thing I did to you at that age, Lambchop. I worked him!”

Ricky was beaming with pride at the way his mother reacted to him and was happy all the way back home.

Once they got to the house, Ricky realized that school was going to start in only a week, and he was nervous. He was afraid he would still be kept out of all of the sports that he loved so much. Mom told him to just think good thoughts and good things would happen for him. Boy, he really hoped she was right.

--Sixty-Five Toss-Power Trap, Halfback Option Sweep!--

Ricky saw Coach Donnelly directing the other kids at the football tryouts. He was nervous, but he was confident after what grandpa had taught him.

During tryouts, he realized he had grown four inches over the summer and didn’t even notice it. Not only that, but he was as strong as the goats he had been working with!

Now none of the other kids called him Sticky Ricky, they were calling him Thick Rick. He became a star football player, a star soccer player, and got a trophy in every sport he tried! All he had needed was a little time. And Grandpa’s farm.