Pictured to the right, courtesy of my camera’s superzoom, is Mr Pinault, zipping up his wetsuit before the commencement of this morning’s sprint triathlon in Greenfield, MA. Yow!
It was a beautiful morning to play spectator to the physical anguish of others.
I sat on a concrete and stone wall, watching the cycling portion of the race. Nearby a mother and her two sub-ten year old children waited in a state of cat-like readiness for Daddy to pass by. “Where’s Daddy? Where’s Daddy?” the son and daughter asked repeatedly, bouncing on their behinds. “I don’t know, kids,” the mother said with a light tone in her voice as she peered eagerly at the faces of the oncoming cyclists. “We should be seeing him soon!”
Finally Daddy was spied from afar. His fans sprung to their feet in anticipation of their hero’s passage. “Daddy! Daddy!” the kids called to the lumbering Clydesdale man, pedaling bow-legged on his top-of-the-line racing bicycle. The son rushed to the side of the road, waving his arms. “Go Daddy!”
Daddy lifted his torso, turned to his family, raised his arm… and beamed his son on the foot with an empty water bottle. Several pieces of opaque cellophane floated to the ground. “Pick that up, will you?” he called as he sped away. Enthusiasm deflated, the family sat down, silent.
Surely a man cannot be expected to be Father of the Year in the midst of a triathlon. Yet one does not expect him to throw trash at his family, either.
