A+ in Stealing

I had a bit of a Willy Loman moment yesterday when my son Ian opened his book bag and produced one of the soccer balls I instructed him to steal from gym class, and I then commended him for his initiative . . . I had just finished teaching the play and quickly remembered the moment when Willy condoned Biff's "borrowing" of the football from the locker-room and then later wondered why Biff ran off with Bill Oliver's fountain pen; I'd like to think this situation is slightly different but you will have to be the judge; last week, my soccer team told me that the gym class has been using three balls that belong to our travel soccer team-- we have practice at night on the school turf and sometimes we leave a ball or two behind, and these balls are then impressed into service for the school (despite the fact that they have our team name and the assistant coach's name on them) and so I told my team that we have to get those balls back, as the ball bag is rather depleted . . . and, of course, Ian was able to smuggle one out of class and bring it back to its rightful home . . . it was probably a bad way to go about getting the balls back, especially because in the past Ian has been involved in some sketchy situations at school, but I'm still proud of his moxie (and glad to have another ball in the bag).