Jonathan Peyton McNair -- if that's the kid's real name and I remembered it right -- I'm guessing you will hear of him regarding the world of gymnastics some time around the next Olympics. Because if what this 14-year-old did on the monkey bars at Clark Park in West Philadelphia Saturday night the same kind of stuff they do in the Olympics, this kid's got the right stuff.
Jonathan Peyton McNair might not be his real name but why would he make up a name like that unless he wanted to live it. Jonathan Peyton McNair! This kid was so good that after he dismounted, with a flourish, among little children, the two concerned fathers who walked after him were me and a Spike Lee looking dude with a young daughter.
Both of us were there to tell the young man the same story. Son, you've got a lot of talent. You could go to college on a scholarship with the talent you just demonstrated. I told the kid he was good enough to get into Temple. And the Spike Lee looking guy just looked at me. And then he agreed. The kid's doing 280s or whatever level of difficulty on the monkey bars at Clark Park where hundreds, a hillside full of hundreds, had gathered to watch Shakespeare. It was quite literally, a comedy of errors
Not the play or the players. The Comedy of Errors played to a full park packed with squealing kids on swings and screams of outraged sneakers on the basketball courts. There was the occasional fire engne or police siren on its way to a job. It was quite pleasant. I didn't understand a word of it, the play that is. But as I watched the players watch the play, it was wonderful to behold.
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