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Joe DeRozier, I just make donuts

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Joe DeRozier, I just make donuts

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This was my third lap around the block.<br /> <br /> I&#039;ve slowed down each time I neared my old home at 607 Steele Street, but just haven&#039;t been able to muster enough nerve to pull into the driveway. <br /> <br /> It has been 8 years since Dad passed away. <br /> <br /> With dad gone, the yard, the shoveling, the upkeep, and the taxes would prove to be too large of a hurdle for mom to overcome, so she moved in with my brother, David, leaving the place we called home for nearly 50 years.<br /> <br /> On this, my 3rd approach of what I still considered our home, I swallowed hard. Filled with trepidation, pulled into the diveway.<br /> <br /> I didn&#039;t drive more than just a few feet into the drive before stopping, and putting my car into park.<br /> <br /> I gazed at the house where I spent the first 18 years of my life.<br /> <br /> Though I knew the &quot;Derozier&quot; Street sign that had graced our yard the whole time my family lived there was refurbished and sitting in my own garage, I felt it&#039;s rightful place was there at 607 Steele. <br /> <br /> Our house was still yellow, and, surprisingly, my basketball goal was still on the garage.<br /> <br /> I sure spent a lot of time shooting at that hoop.<br /> <br /> As I looked at the garage, I couldn&#039;t help but wonder if the cabinet dad built that held our basketballs, footballs, baseballs, air pumps, and bent air needles was still there?<br /> <br /> Wouldn&#039;t it be cool if there was just one warped basketball hiding in the back of one of those shelves?<br /> <br /> I can still see dad.<br /> <br /> He is wearing his work glasses with the plastic guards on the sides. The guards were to prevent flour from getting behind his glasses while working in the press room at the Plumbers.<br /> <br /> Those flimsy plastic pieces did very little, though, as the yellowish flour was ever present.<br /> <br /> He was in his steel-tipped work boots, work pants, and a button-down shirt that was later replaced by a t-shirt as he got older.<br /> <br /> &quot;One more shot, Joe Joe&quot;...<br /> <br /> Those words were like music to my ears, and I swear I heard dad say them as plain as day.<br /> <br /> We often played basketball after it got dark. <br /> <br /> The only illumination of our basketball goal came from the two lights positioned on each side of the garage, and the beacon coming from the light pole near the Haack&#039;s driveway in the alley.<br /> <br /> Those light sources provided enough glow to give us a pretty good idea where to heave the basketball. <br /> <br /> &quot;One more shot, Joe Joe, then we need to go in&quot;<br /> <br /> Wherever I was standing when dad said that, would be &quot;the spot&quot;.<br /> <br /> Dad would continuously feed me the ball until we&#039;d hear the unmistakable whoosh of the ball going through the net.<br /> <br /> Whether I did it on the first try, or after 700 shots...<br /> <br /> ...whether it was raining, snowing, or mom was poking her head out the back door, telling us to come in...<br /> <br /> ...dad nor I were leaving that driveway until we heard that &quot;whoosh&quot;.<br /> <br /> Dad and I started playing basketball in that driveway when I was 7 years old.<br /> <br /> As I grew bigger and faster, the dynamic of our games changed.<br /> <br /> When dad couldn&#039;t jump as high or run as fast, his game got a little more...<br /> <br /> ...physical. <br /> <br /> Let&#039;s just say that I learned not to attempt to run by him for a layup unless I was certain I was out of his reach. If I wasn&#039;t fast enough, the play ended with me wrapped in a bear hug and the ball bouncing haphazardly out of bounds.<br /> <br /> &quot;Out of bounds&quot; was a term that only pertained to me by the time I was 18, with dad having no rules to have to follow.<br /> <br /> Those games often had us both laughing so hard we could hardly dribble...<br /> <br /> ...not that dad was required to, anyway.<br /> <br /> &quot;One more shot, Joe Joe, and we need to go in.&quot;<br /> <br /> When I had pulled into the driveway at 607 Steele Street, my intention was to knock on the door and ask to walk through my old home.<br /> <br /> I thought that a walk-through of our old yellow home would fill me with the nostalgia I felt I needed, but...<br /> <br /> ...but just sitting in my car, and thinking about dad, made me realize something. <br /> <br /> It isn&#039;t nostalgia I was looking for...<br /> <br /> ...it was dad.<br /> <br /> And I realized that I wasn&#039;t going to find dad at 607 Steele Street.<br /> <br /> Dad isn&#039;t in the garage, working in the yard, or even playing basketball wearing his work glasses with the plastic guards on the sides, steel-tipped work boots, work pants, and a button-down shirt that was later replaced by a t-shirt as he got older.<br /> <br /> Dad was, and always will be, with me.<br /> <br /> &quot;One more shot, Dad&quot;<br /> <br /> I slowly pulled out of the driveway that perhaps I was a little too brazen to have entered in the first place.<br /> <br /> I felt happy, and full of love. <br /> <br /> My deep longing I felt to enter our home had been vacated.<br /> <br /> I backed my car out of this other person&#039;s driveway, away from this other person&#039;s house, and on to Steele Street. <br /> <br /> My heart was happy as we drove towards the downtown...<br /> <br /> ...just me and dad.

Joe DeRozier, I just make donuts

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