Voluntold; The Story of the Time that My Dad Volunteered My Mom for a Project

This is my second grade soccer photo.

If anybody reading this blog identifies themself in this photo and they object to it, please reach out and I will put a big ‘ol Eat N’ Park Smiley Face or something over your mug. Most of this post is actually going to be about the team banner shown in this photo.

For the first few years after we moved to Berlin, I played AYSO soccer. A lot of my classmates also played AYSO soccer. The team in this photo was just one of many teams of kids my age who went to school in Berlin. Our AYSO teams were all co-ed. I later graduated from high school with many of the kids in this photo. The exceptions were the kids who were my age but were in other grades, and the kid who moved in junior high. (The birthday cut-off for teams for AYSO soccer was slightly different than the birthday cut-off for our school district.)

Berlin’s varsity soccer program started after I left high school. Our town didn’t have any “permanent” soccer facilities when I was a kid. The “soccer fields” that I played on during my short soccer career all became other things. For instance, most of our elementary school soccer games were held on a farmer’s then-fallow cornfield. A few years later, it became a planted cornfield. There was another, smaller “soccer field” in town where the kindergarten kids practiced and played their AYSO soccer games. We also played pick-up soccer with the neighborhood kids on the “kindergarten soccer field.” When I was in high school, the parents of one of those neighborhood kids custom built their Forever Home on the lot that was formerly the “kindergarten soccer field.”

(Disclaimer: I think that one of my childhood soccer fields was a fallow cornfield. I could be wrong about this. Maybe it was a wheatfield? I saw farms from my backyard. Our house was on the very edge of town. We certainly smelled them. My entire eighth grade class was required to take Vocational Agriculture. A lot of my classmates lived on farms and I didn’t. I mis-remember a lot of things, so I could be wrong about the corn.)

My soccer career started in March of second grade, a few months after we moved into “Joe’s House.” I am pretty sure that my soccer career was my dad’s idea.

Now it’s time to talk about something else that was my dad’s idea.

Dad took me to my soccer team’s introductory meeting, held in the school cafeteria. This was where we learned the rules, and voted on a team name. (“Firebolts” won the vote for team name.) This was also the meeting where the coach asked for a volunteer to make the team banner. Our team’s official sponsor was Keidel’s Hardware. Both the team name and the team banner needed to include Keidel’s. Spoiler: my dad volunteered my mom to make the team banner! And she wasn’t there! She was at home with their other two young kids.

I do remember how all of this went down. We came home from the soccer meeting. My dad said to my mom something like, “I volunteered you to make the banner since you like to sew!” My mom wasn’t as excited as my dad was.

Less than two months later, my parents purchased their house in Berlin. My mom repainted the living room while we were at school. My parents moved all of our stuff out of “Joe’s House” and into “Our House.” I celebrated my First Communion at our new Catholic parish the same month that we moved into Chez Gaffron. Mom found out during my First Communion rehearsal that every mom there except for her had planned a family party to celebrate their child’s First Communion. (Mom’s own parents didn’t “do” First Communion parties. Dad’s family were Protestants. Mom didn’t realize that First Communion parties were a thing. She threw one together for me. Our extended family showed up so that they could see my parents’ new house. I got a cake and presents, and it wasn’t even my birthday yet.)

My first soccer game happened a week after we moved and a week or so before my First Communion.

I understand why Mom didn’t realize that when she dropped me off for the warmup before my first soccer game, that she was also supposed to drop off the banner. There was a lot going on in our family. Also, Mom didn’t want to make the banner in the first place.

The coach and the “team mother,” or whatever they called the woman who organized everything, said to me, “Jenny, where is the banner that your mom made?”

I didn’t know. (I think that she was at my younger sister’s soccer game, which was probably held at the exact same time, at the “Kindergarten Soccer Field” that I mentioned above.)

They asked me for my parents’ new phone number. I didn’t know that either. We had only moved a week earlier.

Someone tracked my mom down (probably at my sister’s soccer game) and asked her to bring the banner to my soccer game.

Mom showed up at my soccer game with the banner and explained, “I haven’t finished it yet.”

I don’t think that Mom ever finished the team banner for Keidel’s Firebolts. The top of the banner looks sort of “unpopulated” in our team photo. However, the bottom of the banner has a cool-looking thunderbolt. You just can’t see it because kids are standing in front of it in this photo. So maybe that was her artistic vision for it. Mom was very talented in multiple textile arts, although we never said it like that. We just said, “Mom is good at sewing,” or “Mom is good at needlepoint,” or “Mom is good at crochet,” or “Mom just taught herself how to knit a sweater from watching YouTube videos,” or “Mom owns a lot of yarn.”

Mom also sewed her own wedding dress. I plan to post a photo of it soon. Unlike the soccer banner for Keidel’s Firebolts, Mom decided on her own to make her wedding dress. We still have it and cherish it very much, just as I cherish the memories of my parents during our first spring in Berlin.