Bits & Pieces

 

By Kim J. Harmon

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here were quite a few things that amused me this past week – right when I needed to be amused the most.

(1) Gregg Simon, the Newtown High School athletic director, may be starting to think that the person in charge of ordering all the rainy weather is doing it just to vex him. Since the 2001 season started (and through Tuesday afternoon), the freshman field hockey team has not played a single game, the varsity boys’ soccer team has played just one game, and Mr Simon had to postpone the varsity girls’ soccer game with Lauralton Hall on Saturday night only after everyone was on site and ready to go.

And people are starting to get that look in their eye like it’s his fault.

I think it’s gotten to the point that when Mr Simon retires, it will be to someplace where it never rains – like Arica, Chile (0.5 millimeters of rain every year).

(2) Like Woody Allen – or Rodney Dangerfield, more appropriately – the Stratford High School girls’ soccer team was able to have a little fun at its own expense on Tuesday afternoon.

For the first few minutes of its South-West Conference soccer match with Newtown, it was a serious affair. As it should be. But once Chelsea Morin scored the first goal, the Nighthawks quickly pulled away and with 25 minutes still left to play in the second half were up seven goals.

Boy, I know that would make me grumpy. But when Siobhan Cooper suddenly reversed field on a defender or when Kim Helfer somehow stole a ball right in front of the goaltender and spun around for a quick goal, the Red Devils did little more than shake their heads and chuckle a little bit.

It sure beats shouting and pointing fingers, doesn’t it?

(3) Michael Jordan (through his management company) finally admitted to the worst kept secret in the National Basketball Association – he’s coming out of retirement.

GASP! Whoa, I never would have guessed, even though it’s all most idiot broadcasters could talk or idiot writers could ruminate about for the last 12 months or so. Everybody knew he was coming back. Crustaceans living on the ocean floor, seven miles beneath the surface, knew he was coming back.

But at least he made it official.

Now the media frenzy can really begin.

(4) It was my son’s ninth birthday last week and one of the things a friend of his gave him at the party – which was, God help me, at Chuck E Cheese – was the Vortex football (the football that can be thrown 110 yards!).

Ben brought that up to me, that the ball could be thrown 110 yards.

“Only if your name is John Elway,” I said.

The Vortex is a lightweight, plastic-type football with some sort of foam-like tail attached to the end. The exact materials escape me, but suffice it to say it was designed to be thrown 110 yards – if the guy throwing it is John Elway.

But I decided to see how far I could get it. Now, I don’t have a terrible arm, but I have been known to strain my rotator cuff just reaching for my box of Everlasting Gobstoppers™. Anyway, I took the ball out to the backyard, right back near the swing set, and let fly with a ball that sailed out of the yard, across the street, and halfway into the neighbor’s yard.

Remember, this is Waterbury. I have about a quarter-acre of land, if that.

Anyway, I paced it off and it came (give or take) to 67 yards. And I really let it fly. Now, maybe I could get another eight or nine yards on a throw, but my arm would probably rip right out of its socket.

Just 67 yards.

I think I can sue the Vortex people for false advertising. Or maybe for pain and suffering, since I can barely crack open my pistachios right now.

Like I said above, I needed to be amused this week. It’s been 17 days since the World Trade Center was attacked and we still don’t know how many people have died. Even though I know I shouldn’t be, I can’t be, I am still afraid, still very worried about what this all means, and still wondering about what kind of world my kids are growing up into. One question that crosses my mind every day is, “What am I going to be doing in a year or two years? Huddling in a corner of the basement, my arms around my family, listening to it all come to an end?” Right now, I think we all need to be amused by something.