The doctor makes a house call

It was 1968, the year from which all neo-cultural entities emanated. I didn’t know that at the time or I would have been more observant of what was happening around me.

But, as Ali Babba once said, we can only look back at life to understand how we lived it.

I was on military leave visiting some friends in my hometown. I had spent a few hours with old high school friends who had somehow escaped the draft and were living the good life in the rolling hills while I was off in a foreign state (Delaware) fighting my guts out trying to get the last glass of milk in the chow line at the military mess. I tell ya, the sacrifices I made for my country.

It was about midnight when I wandered back to my parents’ home. They had already gone to bed so I tried to be as quiet as possible. I ventured into the kitchen for a soda and piece of carrot cake. I then decided to watch television for a few minutes while I consumed my snack.

I channel surfed until I came upon an ABA basketball game. I hadn’t seen many of the games because of my military service so I was happy to observe the style and play in the new league.

It turned out that the Virginia Pilots were playing the New Jersey Nets, two teams with which I was unfamiliar.

The play was fast and furious but the game itself was not unlike a thousand other games I had watched over the years. I was so unimpressed I started to turn off the television and head for bed.

But, then, it happened. A tall, skinny kid with a huge afro broke away from the pack at half court and started loping toward the hoop. When his foot touched the foul line, he skied toward the basket with the ball in the fingertips of his right hand and his right arm completely extended. He seemed to float through the air with his legs akimbo until he dunked the ball effortlessly into the hoop.

I couldn’t believe what I had just seen. A person can’t elevate from the foul line and dunk the ball in one motion, can he?

The game announcer yelled that the doctor had just made a house call. Doctor J. Julius Erving. The greatest basketball player ever, until Michael came along.

I knew that I had seen greatness that night as I turned off the light and went to bed, but as with other seminal moments in one’s life, the memory of that dunk only resonated in my consciousness in retrospect.