CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Barbara had three siblings in Sonora; I met them when we lived with Peggy. My sister-in-law, Barbara’s younger sister Emma, and her husband/my brother-in-law Eddie were nice, hospitable people. They lived on a big property, with horses and a friendly pig with black hair that was allowed in the house, another thing that I had never seen before. I never knew how smart pigs were or that they could make such adorable house pets.
Eddie had a small boat and he would take us out on a nearby lake sometimes, bringing some fun into my generally boring new life. Barbara’s other brother, Van, which I pronounced “when” in my broken English, lived at the hotel Peggy managed, with his wife, Mel. The two of them helped manage the business, and I recall seeing Emma at the front desk sometimes, too. Although we didn’t interact all that often, they were always fair and decent to me.
Sky, Barbara’s other brother, was a friendly guy and a music fan like me. Looking back, I can’t recall anything negative about her family, and to this day I am very grateful for all the support and warmth I received from them.
Job opportunities were very limited in Sonora, since it was such a small town. Barbara had experience in the catering business, so she found a job fairly easily, and she was gone most of the time. On the other hand, I had to say hello once again to darkness, my old friend, which seemed to somehow always miss me and visit me from time to time. I remember somebody suggesting applying for unemployment, which was a new concept to me. I am very grateful for those modest checks, which came in extremely handy, allowing me to help Barbara and Peggy with groceries. As far as I can remember, this was the one and only time I ever collected unemployment in this country during a span of three decades. Being still fairly new to America, I felt a certain level of guilt receiving money that I thought I didn’t deserve. The feeling of being a guest in this country would stay with me for many years to come.
I was twenty years old and jobless in a new town and once again had no friends to spend my days with. I was staying up late and sleeping in in the mornings. I remember watching a lot of the NBA playoff games, especially the Chicago Bulls, on an old, small TV at Peggy’s house. Time was going by, and Peggy began encouraging me to get out of the house and to stop sleeping in so late.
“Honey, you need to get out and meet people,” she said. “You’re wasting your youth.” I can still hear her voice in my head, exactly the way she sounded and the tone, which was one of worry, rather than the disappointment I might have heard from my own mother.
Peggy was right. I was beginning to feel like I was wasting away, so I started to leave the house every day. I didn’t have much of a goal in mind, so I would usually take my basketball and walk about a mile to Sonora High School, where I would shoot hoops by myself.
I grew up playing a lot of basketball back home, but my shooting really improved in Sonora because that was pretty much all I did. I stood on that court almost daily, practicing free throws. One day, I made thirty-six free throws in a row without missing. At least half of them were nothing but net. That’s always a thrill — the nice backward spin you give to the basketball from the wrist, watching it swoosh through the net without touching the rim, then seeing the ball come bouncing right back to you at the free-throw line due to the spin.
I could not jump very high, and I wasn’t extremely fast. But what I lacked in speed, I made up for with athleticism, good coordination, and accuracy. I remember hitting eighteen straight three-pointers from the same corner spot, with my friends Deniz and Ayhan present and feeding me the ball, at the Dokuz Eylül University in Izmir in the late ’80s. I can still hear Deniz’s voice cursing jokingly in Turkish each time he gave me the ball to continue shooting. I was also able to hit the crossbar of a soccer goal regularly with 40 percent to 50 percent accuracy, four or five out of ten shots, from right outside of the penalty box, around twenty yards or so, in the early 2000s.
It was a very good feeling to get good at doing something, the feeling of “you just can’t miss,” but many years later, when I found out about Stephen Curry hitting 105 straight three-pointers in a row during practice, I didn’t feel that special anymore. There could be a whole book written about what Stephen Curry achieved that day during practice. This is an unbelievable, extremely difficult achievement, making 105 straight three-pointers in a row.
I have a bit of an idea of what it’s like to feel really good when playing sports. I got a glimpse of this feeling in the past while playing basketball and soccer and briefly Ping-Pong and pool. I say a glimpse because I only felt this way a very few times out of the thousands of games I played. But the feeling is truly special and goes something like this:
The ability to play a game very well seems to come easily when it’s happening. It’s like the universe has seized you and made you its instrument. You have extremely fine touch and total control of the ball. When playing pool, making shots and setting yourself up for the next shot comes naturally and easily. Having played a lot of billiards during my teen years back home in Izmir, I had an early understanding of the importance of controlling the cue ball on the table. Out of all of the spins on a cue ball, side spins are the hardest because anytime the cue ball is hit on its right or left side, it becomes extremely difficult to make the shot. Your accuracy is precise, whether while making a pass or taking a shot on the soccer field. You feel everything comes very naturally. You feel confident, euphoric, and extremely talented. I do believe that what I felt only a few times in my life, playing sports and games, is what many talented athletes, both professional and non-pro, feel a lot more frequently. But making 105 straight three-pointers is difficult to even dream about, and it’s something out of this world.
Comments