CUURT ad: Slow down, he told me

My son told me to "slow down, Pops" as I came off the pickleball court at 66. Then he drove four hours to my first big tournament to "keep an eye on me." He's been mowing my lawn every Saturday since, and I never asked him to. My name is Hollis. I spent thirty-eight years keeping school buses on the road. Brakes, belts, the heater that never worked in January. I was the guy who could hear a bad bearing from across the lot. My wife Margie passed three years ago this winter. Colby, our son, was thirty-five then. He didn't say much at the funeral. He just started showing up. Tuesdays for supper. Thursdays to check the gutters. A text every night at nine. I let him. Honestly, I needed it. Then I retired. Two springs ago. A sheet cake in the break room, a toolbox with my name stamped on the lid, done. And friend, the days got very long. The rec center had pickleball on Thursday mornings. I went once to get out of the house. A month later I was driving there on Mondays too, and on Saturdays, and I'd bought my own paddle. Colby took it up because I did. Except he plays on Sunday afternoons with his work buddies at a backyard court one of them built, and he brings me along, and then talks about it through the whole drive home. Most of those guys play with their dads. Trent's dad is 71. Jamal's mother is 59. Colby's boss plays with his father-in-law. The man is 68 and wears a visor like it's armor. And Colby started comparing. Never to my face exactly. It just kept showing up in the conversation. "Trent's dad hasn't missed a Sunday in two years. He gets to everything." "Jamal's mom played all afternoon and then mowed the yard." I told myself that was Colby being Colby. I told myself that for months. Because the truth is, I was hurting. I play four times a week. Thursday ladder, open play, the Saturday round robin. And after every session I'd sit in my truck in the lot and take my shoes off before I put it in gear. Pinky toe rubbed raw. One toenail gone black. The joint on my big toe throbbing by the second game. I taped that toe before every match with the same roll I used to use on bus wiring. I'd gone up half a size. Then I bought the extra wide. The heel slid around in there like a boot two sizes too big. I figured it was age. That's what everybody tells you at sixty-six. Then the comments started. Sunday at the backyard court, I came off after a long point and bent over to catch my breath. Trent saw me walk to the cooler. "Easy there, Pops. Somebody get him a chair." Everybody laughed. I laughed too. What else do you do. In the car Colby said, "It was a joke, Dad. Don't make it a thing." Don't make it a thing. A few weeks later at the Saturday round robin he parked next to me. Which he'd never done. Then he stood by the fence the whole morning with his arms crossed. "Just watching," he said. "Don't mind me." Thursday ladder, he came with a folding chair. Set it down behind my court like a lifeguard. By August he'd stopped being subtle. "Dad, you limp to the truck every single time. Every time. Just play in the seniors bracket and do half as much. I'm saying it because I love you." Because I love you. He had his hand on my shoulder when he said it. Like I was something that might tip over. I didn't say anything back. In July I'd gotten a text from the Thursday regulars. Six of us, together since the first week. Somebody had found a tournament. "Harvest Classic. Wichita. Two days of round robins, October. Who's in?" I said yes before I finished reading it. I told Colby over supper on Tuesday, and he put his spoon down. "Two days? On those courts?" "Yes." "Dad. Are you sure that's smart?" "Why wouldn't it be?" He picked his words. "Hard concrete. All weekend. Guys who play a lot more than you. I just don't want you hobbling around Wichita in front of everybody." I just don't want you hobbling. "I'm going." "Okay. Bring the brace. And the cane, just in case. Bring everything." I took my bowl to the sink and stood there washing it. It was clean. The next day I drove out to the lake road where Ozzie lives. Ozzie's in my Thursday group. He's 72. Ran a bait shop for most of his life, started playing the summer he sold the shop. He isn't a coach or anything. He's just the guy on court two who never seems to be tired. I told him all of it. The folding chair. "Somebody get him a chair." For once Ozzie didn't have a joke. Then he walked out to his truck and came back with a box under his arm. "Hollis. Sit down. I've been meaning to give you these." Inside were court shoes. Plain light grey. And the front of them was wide. Not puffy. Shaped like a foot. "I switched two summers ago," he said. "They're CUURT. The Muuv. I kept meaning to hand you a pair." "You noticed?" "Hollis. I've watched you sit in that truck with your shoes off for two years." He pulled the tailgate down and explained it to me, one sock off, on the gravel. "Your foot stands on three spots. The big toe, the little toe, the heel. Like the three legs of a campfire pot stand. Most shoes come to a point up front, so the two front legs get squeezed together. The heel's raised, so it tips you forward. Go up a size and the heel slides. Now one leg's gone." "I got the extra wide, though." "Same shoe, Hollis. New color every spring, new name on the box. Somebody paints it and calls it new." He turned the shoe over in his hands. "These start with the outline of a bare foot. Widest where your toes are. Level heel. Snug in the back and through the middle so you don't slide on a stop. They call it TrueFoot Tribase Stability. Wide is a size. TrueFoot is a shape." Then the warning. "They feel firm and flat. On purpose. Give it a few games. And buy your real size. Don't go up." Thursday morning I wore them on the ladder. Four rounds. Then I walked to the truck with them still on. I didn't notice until I reached for the seatbelt. The next morning I walked out for the paper and came down the porch steps without touching the rail. I stood in the yard in my slippers for a minute, wiggling my toes. Two weeks before Wichita I was loading the truck. Colby pulled into the driveway. "One pair of shoes? For the whole weekend?" "One's plenty." "Pack the old ones too. In case your feet act up." I left the old ones in the garage. The morning I left, I didn't ask for a ride. I went out at five. "Drive safe," he said on the phone. "Pace yourself." Four hours later I pulled into the sports complex in Wichita. Gravel lot, banners, a taco truck. And there was a white SUV with the tailgate open. Colby. With a folding stool, a cooler of sports drinks, two bags of ice packs, and a first aid kit the size of a toolbox. He grinned and held out his arms. "Surprise!" "Colby. What are you doing here?" "I couldn't stop thinking about it. Two days on concrete. Somebody should be here if you need to come off early." "I'm with my friends." "I know. I got a room across the street. I'll just be around. In case." He said it like he was handing me a gift. "You took off work. And didn't say a word." "I figured you'd be glad." The man at the registration table was trying very hard to have no expression at all. Colby had on brand new running shoes, a size up from his usual, the kind with a foam heel like a loaf of bread. He stood in the gravel and the whole stack of ice packs slid off the tailgate onto his feet. Ozzie and the others were by the courts. "Wait. Your kid came?" "My kid came." "Why?" "He thinks I need a lifeguard." We warmed up. The first round started at nine. Halfway through the first game, Ozzie stopped at the kitchen line with his paddle on his hip. "Since when do you get to those dinks?" He looked at my feet. "Huh. They work." "Told you." By ten Colby was standing at the fence. Already sunburned on the back of his neck. No hat. He'd found a free visor in a vendor bag that said TACO TUESDAY on it. "Just checking you're okay." My friends just looked at him. "I'm fine, Colby." He stood there shifting from foot to foot. Day two, Colby was back at the fence. Redder. Same visor. And walking funny. The new shoes. His heel had been sliding since breakfast. There was a blister on the back of it with a square of moleskin from the first aid table on top. He watched my first two matches sitting down on his stool. The afternoon was the 65-and-over bracket. The one he had wanted me in. I'd put myself in the open instead. After our third match, a big guy from the other team came all the way around the net. Maybe forty-one. Sweat all through his shirt. "Sorry, I have to ask. What are those on your feet? You were at every ball. I've been watching you move all morning." I told him. He pulled out his phone and typed it in standing there. "My feet are wrecked. I'm forty-one. Thank you." Our whole bench went quiet for a second. Then Ozzie: "Hollis. You haven't limped once. Nine matches." "I hadn't thought about it." "I have. I keep waiting for it when you walk to the truck. It's not there." Colby was at the fence, close enough to hear every word. He was looking down at his own shoes. The moleskin was peeking out the back of one. I didn't say a word. I thought about the lot back home. Sitting in my truck with my shoes off. "Easy there, Pops." The folding chair behind my court. I'd limped to that truck for two years. And I let both of us call it my age. That afternoon Ozzie's granddaughter posted pictures. The six of us at the net. Me mid-dink. The bracket on the whiteboard with my name two lines from the top. The comments came in. Colby's wife, Whitney: "Is that your FATHER? Tell him we're so proud." Then Colby's phone started buzzing. He was sitting on the stool by the taco truck with a cup of ice on his heel. He went from sunburn red to a brand new shade of red. Trent: "Wait. Is that your dad in the semis?? Why are you in a parking lot" Jamal: "He's moving better than my mom lol" Trent again: "Dude. You drove four hours to watch him not need you" Colby put the phone down and limped over to the fence. Slowly, because of the heel. "I was wrong," he said. "About which part?" "The trip. The folding chair. All of it." My friends got very busy re-gripping their paddles. "I'm driving home tonight. Let you finish with the guys. I'm sorry, Dad." He was gone by dinner. We lost the semifinal in three games and laughed about it over barbecue. No fence. No stool. When I got home on Sunday, the lawn was mowed. The gutters were clean. There was a casserole on my stove with a note that said eat this. He called on Monday. I let it ring. On Tuesday he came over and sat at the kitchen table and didn't touch his coffee. He said every time he watched me walk off a court, he saw the year his mother slowed down, when nobody said anything until it was too late. That he'd decided he wasn't going to be the guy who didn't notice. That he got it all wrong. "Dad, you walked off that court easier than I did," he said. "I think that's what scared me." "Then stop watching and play," I said. Then, a little sheepish, he asked if he could have my second pair. It came free with mine. One for the court, one for everything else. "No. That's my yard pair. Order your own. In your real size this time." Ozzie called last week. "So? How was Wichita?" I told him everything. The ice packs. The big fella from the other team. Colby on his stool. He laughed so hard he had to set the phone down. Then: "Three guys from the ladder asked me where I got them. They saw the pictures." "Tell them. Anybody who asks." "I will. You too. Tell every man who sits in his truck with his shoes off after open play." I sat on the porch a while after we hung up. Thinking about a grown man in a visor that said TACO TUESDAY, because he didn't believe me. About a stranger across the net asking where I got my shoes. About two years of limping to a truck and calling it my age. Friend, if somebody who loves you keeps telling you to slow down, and you've started to believe them... Maybe the thing to change isn't how fast you go. Maybe it's what's on your feet. The shoes Ozzie gave me are CUURT Muuv court shoes. More than 30,000 players have switched to CUURT, and the court shoe has almost 2,000 reviews. Get a pair and you get a second pair free, one for the court, one for everything else. Not right for you? 30 days to send them back for your money, no questions asked. Size off? Exchanges are free. Just order your real size. cuurt.com This story is a dramatization built from real messages CUURT customers sent us. Names and details are changed.