Fast Fast Fast

I was listening to the old Simon and Garfunkle song, Hazy Day of Winter, I think is the name. It's being done now by a rock band very quickly and sort of staccato but it's great. Sort of like the new version of Mrs. Robinson on radio stations, and might even be the same band. Captivating beats in both of them.
"Time time time, see what's become of me,
While I looked around for my possibilities..."
I would give you more but I can't remember the exact words and that's an indication that time is catching up with me while I'm still looking for my possibilities, eh?
Time does fly. My oldest, Italo, turns 25 tomorrow. 25. Not like 14 or 12, but 25. I remember meeting him for the very first time when he was just seven years old. He was playing soccer with the older kids. He was just so advanced. And then I married his ma and brought him to the US and New York City and put him in a baseball league on Roosevelt Island and we'd ride our bicycles up from 90th and 3rd Ave through Harlem's east side to the Roosevelt Avenue bridge and then across that woeful structure and past the crazy house there and under the enormous train tressels (spelling?????) there and on to the ball fields. And the first few games nobody knew what to make of this Amazon Indian kid who couldn't speak English and didn't know what baseball was. So they put him in right field, where all the bad players go in little league. The thing was, he'd chase down balls and look at me and I'd tell him what to do with it and they quickly learned they had an athlete on their hands.
In his second year in the league, the coach, Bobby Hoffman, a great baseball man, took his kid off shortstop and put Italo in there. He was a human vacuum. One of the few people in the world who could dive in one direction---say toward second base--stab the ball, then twist and land on his feet with his body pointed toward third base. Jose Oquendo with the Mets could do that. Luis Aparacio from my childhood could do that. Not many others. That's a cat move, not a human move.
Italo's teams won championships for several years, or came darned close. By the time he was 13 they'd have him catching and then put him in as a relief pitcher.
But soccer was his love and he still plays it. The baby he had eight months ago has crimped his style and so he's not playing semi-pro arena league this year, which I wish he would. But he's still playing in a couple of local leagues. He's finishing up his associates degree--I sort of insisted he do that just to be able to get a coaching job if he wanted it, or to teach phy ed in high school around here. He's working. He's being a good dad. I'm proud of him.
And he's turning 25 in about 12 hours.
And that just means time is moving too fast. I would have liked another couple of years at each year with him, know what I mean? I mean, I never got tired of being with him, watching him grow, getting strong, working out. I never wished the time would pass. It did anyway.
Happy birthday, kiddo. Your daddy loves you more than you can imagine.
Hope this is your best year ever.