It’s 4:30 on a Thursday afternoon. Not usually an ideal time to be blogging, but I’m waiting for one more phone-call to come in so I can finish my last story of the week and head home.
I figured I would use these spare moments to share some various and sundry thoughts on topics both local and global with you all.
There are a lot of thing about living in Sandwich that I know better than to complain about. There’s not a ton of night-life or industry, sure, but in a roundabout way that makes the town a far more relaxing and laid-back place to reside. However, if there’s one thing I that gets me all righteously indignant on a daily basis, it has to be the lack of sidewalks, especially on Old Main Street. I walk my 13-year-old Jack Russell Terrier down Old Main every day, and I usually have to drag the little guy into somebody’s front yard every 45 seconds when a car comes barreling down the road. It’s only inconvenient in the summer. However, its absolutely frustrating in the winter months when people’s front yards are outlined in snow drifts. What do we do about this? I don’t know. Sometimes it’s nice to complain about something without offering a reasonable solution, though. It’s downright Patriotic, in fact.
I listened to President Obama’s health-care address in my car on the radio last night after attending a school committee meeting. I thought the President gained momentum and confidence as the address progressed. It was a practical and well paced response to both the legitimate and ludicrous concerns about health care reform. I had my notebook on me while I listened, so I jotted down some questions his speech raised with me and I’m hoping to be far more engaged in this debate during the stretch run than I was during the last few months. Judging from what I saw of the town-hall meetings during the summer and general level of discourse surrounding this issue to this point, I don’t feel like I’ve missed a whole hell of a lot, yet.
Speaking of last night’s address, I wonder how Senator Joe Wilson (R-South Carolina) is feeling this afternoon? While me and this guy probably have next to nothing in common, I sure know how it feels to be on the border of losing your temper in a public assembly, especially when you feel like the guy controlling the mic is full of crap. He should have read by last blog entry! Pack a PB&J next time, Joe.
Football starts tonight. I enter a fantasy football league every year and every year I promise myself that I’ll find a more productive way to waste 20 bucks. My participation is solely the result of peer pressure from a group of guys I post on a music forum with. I like football. I mean, I am a human being after all. But I don’t follow it with the same zealotry as professional basketball, which is two months away from filling a massive void in my life. Anyway, I was lucky enough to draft Adrian Peterson. So there’s that.
Basketball! I guess it has come time to bid see-ya to a fund and productive summer of pick-up hoops. As the summer fades so do the avaiable hours shooting around outdoors. Prior to this summer, I had not set a pick or swatted away a lay up in anger in probably eight years. I started shooting baskets at the Henry T. Wing School back in May. At first, I found myself playing games of one on five against hordes of eager fourth graders. I was out there almost every day in June, despite the rain, and even managed to recruit a small but dedicated group of adult ballers to start playing with me on the regular. My favorite memory from this summer comes from our rainy June, when, during a soaking wet afternoon, basketball-buddy Brian and I spent probably four hours playing two on two against two brothers who were visiting from Kentucky. We won a few games, lost a few more and slid around the rain slicked court like it was a hockey rink. I felt like a 12-year-old; It was freaking brilliant. Also, I’ll just point out that being 12 rules way harder at age 25 than it did at age 12. That day is also when I received the best nickname that’s ever been bestowed on me in my entire life; White Howard. It still makes me laugh.
By July our numbers had grown to a point where we could run full court game. By August we were meeting regularly and I was, to my own surprise, scoring a basket or two and pulling down a reasonable amount of rebounds in every game. I was no longer embarrassing myself, at least. I spent essentially my entire Labor Day playing basketball. Appropriately, it was with the same small and devoted group of ballers who I had formed a bond with at the start of the summer. It was fantastic. If Labor Day is supposed to be a celebration of the end of the summer, I couldn’t think of a better way to do it than to spend the day getting the living crap beat out of me by a few close friends on a beat up old basketball court.
The views and opinions in the Enterprise blogs are those of the author and are not neccessarily shared by Falmouth Publishing.
