Positive engagement
It's summer. The mid-day gym ritual has been infiltrated by hoardes of day camp kids. The usually empty locker room is crawling with pre-teens shivering in towels and bouncing off walls. These kids are new to the gym thing. I've noticed several trying to remember their locker combinations by repeating them aloud. Others have clearly never seen an adult naked, and it shows. It's difficult to have a shower under scrutiny of horrified stares. So my strategy has been to keep to myself, to avoid chat or awkward questions about body hair. I remember what it was like to be a nervous kid in a locker room, so I decided to make it easy on these kids by ignoring them.

Then last week I was getting dressed when I noticed a little boy pressed in a corner, wrapped tightly in a towel. He must have been no more than 5.

"Mister, why won't you talk to me?"

"I didn't think you wanted me to talk to you." (Me suddenly feeling stupid.)

"Are you going to laugh at me when I take off my clothes?" My heart melted like the Grinch's. My strategy was all wrong.

"Of course not."

Doug was a loser, scent of pomade his only legacy.