The Little League Theory

For awhile now, I've been working on this theory--it's nothing really revolutionary--but it's more something I've observed over time. And I wouldn't have written about this theory in itself because I try to avoid generalizing about a particular group of people...but I recently just expanded the theory to include everyone. So I figure, now it's fair game.

My original theory was that guys can't let go of their childhood. I'll even narrow it down. Twenty-something year-old guys can't let go of their childhood. Even narrower? Twenty-something year-old guys can't let go of their childhood athletic experience. They remember every game their little league team won, how many runs they scored, who the most formidable opponent was, who the best pitcher was on the first day their coaches (read: dads) allowed them to start pitching. (Hint: The best pitcher was always the person who is telling you the story. It's a very similar phenomenon to how you never actually meet the guy who lost the fight...even if you've talked to both of the only 2 guys involved in the fight.) The level of detail, and the frequency with which these things get brought up amused me. At times it maybe even concerned me.

However, after my last post about technology that we should have invented already, I had a few people divulge some information to me. They told me about inventions they had come up with in their childhood. But they didn't just explain their idea to me and then laugh. They explained their idea to me with utmost seriousness, and proposed that we form a business around this idea. They also swore me to secrecy that I would never reveal the invention they devised when they were 9, because someone would surely steal their idea.

And this got me thinking...do all of us hang onto our childhood in some capacity? Do we all sometimes think that our best days, our best teams, our best ideas were in our childhood?

Really, I'm probably just as guilty of hanging onto my past as the guys I griped about sitting around talking about their Pop Warner days as if they were offensive starting line for the Patriots in Superbowl XXXVI.

For example, I'm still afraid of stuff that I was afraid of when I was 7. And for no other reason than that I was afraid of it when I was 7. Beetle Juice is not a scary movie. I know this. But I still refuse to watch it. I still say, "that movie scares me" when it's referenced.

When I think back about the best projects I did in school, I still think of my wind-powered car in 6th grade.  My senior year of college I wrote a 50 page thesis on the rights of parenthood. But, no, my wind-powered car made out of a paper towel roll and Barbie bicycle wheels is definitely my pride and joy.

So, after further review, maybe it isn't just something in the water in Mens' Locker Rooms. Maybe this sort of nostalgia is something we all experience when we think back to a certain idea we had, or a certain activity we did--the feeling that whatever we did then was better than anything we're doing now.

I really hope that that's not true. But I can't shake this sneaking suspicion that my college adviser may have displayed my 6th grade wind-powered car on a shelf in his office...and my thesis is most likely sitting in the basement of the philosophy building.


“Nostalgia isn't what it used to be."

-Peter De Vries