We juggle memories without knowing which one is sharp
Anonymous
————————————————–
I don’t know about you.
I, sometimes, remember the first family magic.
The visit to the childhood classroom and, in those same days, Christmas.
The circular tour in the Tibidabo Plane, with Barcelona at my feet.
The first pedaling without the training wheels.
The circus in the Arenas bullring and the Camp Nou that the culé misses so much today, the two stages are a circus, what things.
Los Harlem Globetrotters.
(…)
When they visited Barcelona, ??the Globetrotters played at the foot of Montjuïc, in the Palau d’Esports, today a space abandoned to its fate, some say that we will recover it one day.
I have messed up.
I start again.
When they visited Barcelona, ??the Globetrotters played at the foot of Montjuïc and their show, in those seventies, was our great approximation of the prodigious American basketball.
(There were no magazines specialized in the NBA, the millionaire little brother of the trotters, nor chronicles or highlights: if my friend Arturo told me that Kareem Abdul Jabbar was better than Wilt Chamberlain, well, I believed it, I respected the elders, how good child was).
My father took me to see the Harlem Globetrotters. I owe it to my daughter.
Sunshine West (25) was a girl, her name was Kaylin West, when she lived in Bethlehem (Pennsylvania) and, from the living room, her father called out to her:
– Come here, Kay! Come to see this!
–What did your father want? –I ask him.
–Let me sit next to him in front of the television. The Globetrotters were playing!
–And what were you doing?
–I was running down from my room. And she admired me. Those jugglers did shocking things for the world, something that went beyond basketball.
–Did they inspire you?
–I was inspired by Kobe Bryant: I wasn’t from the Lakers, I was from Kobe.
(…)
Sunshine West assists me by video call.
I ask him:
–Why is it called Sunshine?
–When it is cloudy or raining, no one can do what I do.
–Where are you today?
-In Germany.
–Where in Germany?
–I don’t know at all.
(She’s a globetrotter, right? The team is visiting fourteen countries in four months.)
Sunshine West is in Munich. In the afternoon he performs at the BMW Park. This is her premiere with the trotters, the start of the 2024 tour. Sunshine West is a rookie, a newbie.
–How did you sleep on the eve of your debut?
–I was anxious, I assure you. I’ve barely slept. I guess everything will disappear in a second, when we start.
–And how did you get here?
–I have been a basketball player all my life. I have competed for fifteen years. I was a point guard in North Carolina and in college. Although, when I was twelve years old, I didn’t think about basketball.
–¿…?
–I practiced gymnastics. And he was a cheerleader on the high school team. The thing is that my father took me to play.
–I repeat: how did you get here?
–Let’s say that my father was in the right place and at the right time. And he had the opportunity to talk to the right person. In November 2023 I took the entrance exams. They turned out well, so here I am.
–And what did they ask you?
–That he had a personality. You can have a bad day, but you must remain professional. You must make a child laugh.
–What if a trick fails?
–This is more than basketball, of course. There are four-point shots and strange dunks. My trick is very hard, it’s unique, but I’m not going to tell you what it is, you’ll have to come see me.
–Could you play in the NBA?
–If it happened, I assure you that we would be competitive. We have great shooters and matadors. Four members of our staff have been on the verge of taking the leap.
In 2026, the Globetrotters will turn one hundred years old.
(These days, the Harlem Globetrotters are touring Spain: on Wednesday they perform in Lleida and on Sunday, at the Penya home in Badalona).
