Thanks A Lot, S.I. for Kids

I had a birthday recently, and my seven year-old son smiled and said at the dinner table, "Dad, you're a man in his prime."

Nice compliment, huh? Pretty funny, too. Especially if you know my son.

After we all got a good chuckle out of that, he said, "Dad, actually you're middle aged."

So there went that balloon, inflated one minute, pin stuck in it the next.

Later that night my wife told me that he read about these terms in Sports Illustrated for Kids, that both expressions were used and that my son asked what they meant. I'm not sure what the article was about, but it was pretty amusing to see that he then transferred those terms to his own home.

Switching to ESPN parlance, I supposed that when my son hit me with the "middle-aged" line, Dad was "all jacked up."

Thankfully, though, I've recovered, I hope, the way Reggie Bush did from the Sheldon Brown highlight-reel hit in the first quarter of last Saturday's Eagles-Saints game. I might not have Reggie's moves, but I hope that I have his spirit.

Middle-aged?

Perhaps.

In his prime?

Always striving to be.