Saturday Pick-Up Basketball

Every Saturday at nine a.m., about a dozen men in their fifties and sixties play pick-up basketball at the park courts. I joined at fifty-two after my son told me I needed "a hobby that isn't the lawn."

We are slow. We are loud. We have bad knees and worse jump shots. A retired cop named Frank still thinks he's in high school and calls every foul like a referee. A heart surgeon named Dev has a hook shot that is completely unstoppable and very annoying.

We play for two hours. Then we sit on the bench drinking Gatorade and talking about our kids, our jobs, the Lakers and whose knee hurts the most.

I've made more friends in two years on that court than in the twenty years before. My son was right. I needed this. I'm not going to tell him that.