"It's Come Down To This..."

When I was a much younger buck I use to participate in all sorts of church sponsored athletic events, my favorite being church league slow pitch softball. My young adult years in North Carolina revolved around an extended softball season, which began in mid-February and lasted into late October. As anyone knows who has seriously dedicated their leisure time activities to this sport, church league softball can be quite competitive (read: "cutthroat").

The brief off-season was devoted to a two part new player prospecting endeavor. Part One was an evangelical "outreach" to secure un-churched athletes to come to our church and play on our team. (We figured "seasonal Christians" were better than nothing.) Part Two was an unending quest to lure the better players from other church teams to our team for the up-coming season. This particular farming practice was widely frowned upon, mostly by the pastors of their respective congregations, unless the pastor himself was an ardent softball player. I, at the time being a rather fleet-footed center fielder, was propositioned more than a few times about switching religious affiliation.

Beginning right after the perceived last snow fall of the winter, we wanna-be boys of summer would enthusiastically trot onto the first available practice field, break up the ice on the lingering puddles and get down to the business of preparing for the first scheduled pre-season tournament. To follow would be months of weekday league play and weekend tournaments culminating at season's end at the state invitational church team fall tournament. It was only after the conclusion of the season would the raw and forever enflamed strawberry on my right butt-cheek begin to heal, I having the entire season long a propensity to slide into every base with reckless abandon. I had promised my first wife, the week before our wedding day, that I would forgo that maneuver. She was less than thrilled on our honeymoon that I had broken my promise trying to stretch a single into a double.

Yes, those were the days...now long past. Subsequent forays into league play in much later years came the realization that although my spirit was more than willing, my body was better suited for far less strenuous activities. Upon throwing a softball my shoulder made sounds like seashells being ground into fine powder and running at any speed was not unlike dragging a Maytag washing machine behind me. It was, reluctantly, time to quit and leave the sport to far younger participants.

So now it has come down to this... Our community group from church decided that it was time for another social outing. A vote was taken and the consensus opinion was that we would all meet at the St. Petersburg Shuffleboard Club this past Friday evening to enjoy a leisurely few hours of friendly competition. Judi and I paired up to play against another couple, the object being to accumulate 75 points per match before our opponents could do so. Two hours later, Judi and I finally managed in match one to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Determining that additional play would put 90% of us way past our bedtimes, we retired to a local ice cream parlor to celebrate one's victory or lament one's defeat.

Shuffleboard... It ain't an aerobic sport by any stretch of the imagination, but I came away with my right butt-cheek in tact! There are better ways of stretching a single into a double...