Researchers with access to closely guarded college admissions data have found that, on the whole, about 15 percent of freshmen enrolled at Americas highly selective colleges are white teens who failed to meet their institutions’ minimum admissions standards.

When I was a white teen, by golly, you had to get into your not-so-selective institution by your own bootstraps.

So three weeks ago in the middle of a soccer game, I got a feeling like someone had thrown a rock and hit me in the back of the lower leg. Turned out I had pulled one of those muscles that only reveal their central importance to your life when you hurt them. The calf muscle, when it goes out, does so abruptly, with a sensation that reminds you of a rubber band breaking. Your legs go out from under you, and you fall down and roll picturesquely across the lawn until your momentum dissipates. I had to have my friend Ian drive me home after the game because I couldn’t work the gas pedal. (Which was pretty interesting in itself, as Ian hadn’t driven a manual transmission for over a decade. My bullet-head muscles got a nice workout.)

Ice, elevation, etc. You don’t spend a lot of time sitting around when you have two active kids, but I tried to maximize that time. I skipped the next week’s soccer game and swam some laps instead. Yesterday I felt pretty good, so I wrapped the leg, hydrated myself to a comical degree, stretched, warmed up slowly, stretched, took a double dose of Ibuprofen, and stretched. I had a great game, the injured muscle feeling great, until, about halfway through the hour, the identical muscle in the other leg went pop. I did about three yards on the ground, a new personal best. The older injury is even better today — the game seems to have worked it out just enough. So I’m only limping on one side, not both.

Here’s what I’ve been forgetting to report on: A couple of weeks ago our friends Henry and Mark went around town picking up discarded Christmas trees, and invited us all to watch them burn at Ocean Beach after dark. (The trees, not Mark and Henry. They’re both married. [Welcome to the land of jokes gotten only by catechism class survivors.]) We brought some hot dogs and drinks and had a regular spectacle. Those things go up like a pile of firecrackers. (The trees, not the hot dogs. [Welcome to the land of writers who are so lazy they would rather just pile on the brackets than make properly structured sentences.]) It was beautiful, but watching those sparks fly made me glad we’ve switched to a boring old artificial tree at our house.