My Aim Was True

None of the houses I grew up in had a finished basement. All were glorified storage lockers and laundry areas with the occasional attempt at a home office - always in the corner, the proverbial “corner office.” Yet in all the basements, my father found a place to hang a dart board. When he was playing by himself, he hung the board from a rafter. When he began encouraging me to start throwing, he had to hang it from a sheet of plywood because I missed the board so often, which meant the darts hit the concrete wall. This bent a lot of tips.

I always appreciated the wood and feather darts that my dad favored. But I needed to earn the right to throw them. He gave me the brightly colored plastic darts to practice with. They were cheap and didn’t feel as good in the hand as the wooden darts. They also weren’t as accurate or forgiving. Like playing billiards and basketball, I never excelled at these activities like my athlete/engineer father.

But I tried. He didn’t judge. I had a can-do nature. My aim was true, even if I didn’t hit the bullseye.

I have never owned my own dart board, but I did receive this can of darts among the trunks of items my parents saved from my childhood. Darts was never a large component of my childhood, but, as with many items in the trunks, if I touched it, it was important to save.