The cool house

I'm not sure when I realized that my parents were the cool parents. I'm sure that sometime when I was growing up I thought my parents embarrassed me, but sometime in junior high or high school I knew that my parents were the cool parents. The ones my friends secretly wished their parents were like. It wasn't that they spent a lot of money on us, or that they didn't have any rules for us, or that let us have wild parties - that wasn't the case at all. It was that they were always there for us, and for our friends.

My parents were at everything when I was growing up. My dad coached neighborhood baseball while my mom kept score and ran the concession stand. My mom helped put together the yearbook in elementary school. They carpooled for after-school athletic practices or play rehearsals. For school athletics they helped drive and kept score. They let us have friends over on the weekends when we were younger. In high school they let us have parties on Friday nights, and sometimes our friends stayed over till Saturday. They were involved, and I loved it. People asked if our parents could chaperone trips. They piled into our van on road trips even if there was more room in other vehicles.

My parents knew some of the kids at school better than I did. My friends loved to come over to our house because they knew it was a safe place, my parents would always be there for us, there was always good food, and we could have fun without breaking rules. They never allowed alcohol, smoking, or drugs at our house. If someone was causing trouble they had to leave, but that rarely ever happened.

We didn't have a big house, and we didn't have a big yard, but that didn't stop people from coming over. I remember numerous Friday nights when we had a basketball game going in the back yard, people talking in the kitchen, movie watching going on in the den, guitar playing on the second floor, and a foosball game happening in the basement. Mom kept us stocked up with M&Ms, Reese's cups, Doritos, pop, and veggies and dip. People parked up and down the street, since our driveway was pretty small.

I recently had a chance to go back and visit my parents at my old house. It was great to be on familiar territory and back with my family. I relived lots of great memories, and I got to make new ones.