I carry memories of my high school basketball career, such as it was, like extra appendages. Reminders of big team victories and personal disappointments will crop up unbidden. For no apparent reason, I’ll remember the smell of a gym or the way my coach’s voice echoed off the walls during practice.
What I don’t remember is that girl’s varsity basketball was being played in Illinois at the same time I was playing, possibly because I went to an all-boys Catholic school and possibly because if it didn’t involve me, teenaged and thus self-absorbed, it didn’t exist.
But it was being played, and I am grateful that, 40 years later, Melissa Isaacson has taken me by the arm and shown me.