The Raging Elitist

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Little Pitchers

Even before I had children, I always imagined my kids would start getting much more tolerable between eight and ten years of age, that at that point they’d finally start to become real people whom an adult might deem acceptable company. Now that Scotty is eight, and Cartter nearly ten, I realize that in one…
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Break

For a moment I thought I wasn’t going to succumb to the stress of spring’s arrival – the skipping ahead an hour, the blanket of pollen that covers the lowcountry for weeks on end, the portent of summer and the dramatic shift in the family dynamic that season brings – I thought this was the…
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Best Times

Watching my nine-year-old swim his first ever 500 free, I stood on the deck and shook my head in disgust while writing down 50 splits of forty-two and forty-three seconds. Cartter was babying his race, swimming his way to a time that didn’t reflect his preparation or his ability. A week prior I’d watched him…
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Swim Meet Nerves

In the leadup to the State Championship swim meet, I kept on trying to explain to people the unlikeliness of my son Cartter’s event lineup, particularly the rare combination of youthful inexperience and high stakes that would kick off his weekend. “South Carolina Swimming Age Group Champs” in Greenville would be his first travel meet…
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