Today’s a grading catch-up day for yours truly. But before I attack The Piles, I thought you might like a quick sports recap from right here in Keene, NH.
At the beginning of August I blogged about the leveling of some birch trees along the bike path that skirts several factories on the way into downtown. At various points thereafter, I posted additional photos of the ongoing construction.
Well, sports fans: this just in. Those birches weren’t leveled to make a megamart or even another parking lot. Nope, those birches laid down their lives in the name of basketball.
Would it surprise you to hear that I smiled when I saw Keene’s newest basketball courts sprung up right in my own neighborhood? Part of me smiled at the ironic timing: just as nature’s thoughts are turning toward frost and (soon enough) snow, the City’s thoughts are turning toward summer sports. Yes, I know that college and professional b-ball seasons start in the fall…but blacktop basketball is different. Have you ever tried dribbling in the snow? Outdoor basketball is a fair weather sport, so Keene’s basketballers (and a particular Keene blogger who happens to like shooting hoops) will have to hit the courts before the snow flies. Anyone up for a game of H.O.R.S.E?
Elsewhere around town, locals are wearing their sports affinities on their sleeves, er, shop windows. If you deal in frames, it makes sense to show off your wares by proudly displaying framed portraits of the 2004 Boston Red Sox behind a “Beat the Bums”-emblazoned window. Keene’s baseball loyalties are almost equally divided; there are enough transplanted New Yorkers here (including the owner of my favorite upscale restaurant) to make watching a playoff game in public a potentially risky endeavor. (A word to the wise: whereas Margaritas is Sox-friendly, a restaurant like the Stage is proudly pro-Yankee. So although the Stage pours a better Guinness, watching a ballgame at Margs won’t give you indigestion if you root for the Good Guys.)
Kathleen for one is fed up with the current Red Sox/Yankees hoopla. Meanwhile, Numenius has recently found religion, and Greg sees epic overtones in the current series. As for me, I love New York City and have Dharma friends who live there, but at the end of the day, my affection for New York is, like that girl‘s, just a fling. Although I wasn’t born in Beantown, my past with Boston is oh-so-real. I might not wear my sports affinities on my sleeve, er, shop windows…but the camera (like my blogroll) never lies.
Oct 20, 2004 at 11:40 am
Oh, I’m not fed up with the game or the series, I was fed up with the drunk youngin’s drooling all over a group of pretty girls at a bar.
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Oct 20, 2004 at 11:42 am
By the way, I can’t place where those new courts are.
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Oct 20, 2004 at 12:31 pm
Lorianne: we are just biting our nails over here. I can’t STAND it. It’s hard being far away, yet everywhere you go in California, there are Red Sox fans. It’s very heartening. Even non-fans are astonished at the scrappiness of this team.
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Oct 20, 2004 at 2:20 pm
Good to hear, K, that you aren’t anti-sports/Sox. If you were, I’d have to stop speaking with you. 😉 (And since when is it a new thing that drunken young’uns drool over chix at bars?)
And the new b-ball courts are right off Water Street, which is the street that runs between Cumby’s & the 176 House. If you go down Water Street from Main Street, when the bike path crosses the road not far after the abandoned factory on the left, you’ll see the b-ball courts on the left as well.
Pica, there are Sox fans everywhere. And yes, at this point, you *have* to root for the underdog: I mean, these guys have “Energizer Bunny” written all over them.
Tonight’s game corresponds with the Zen Group, so I’ll be *meditating* during the first hour & a half of the game. So maybe that will send some good karmic vibes into Red Sox Nation? 🙂
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