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10/14/2003 Archived Entry: "Monday Night - October 13, 2003"

Our Skate, Skate, Skate
On Monday Night – October 13, 2003

We were so loosely gathered. So relaxed. Paul K was there, but no skates were on his feet, Mark D too. A voice came from all the rest of us who were wearing skates, “Are you going skating tonight, Mark?”
“Nope. Soccer,” he replied in his cowboy type voice. Paul was simply standing nearby in his laid-back fashion. In conjunction with the word "soccer," there became a huge smile on Paul's face. And without Mark’s whistle, we almost didn’t have a gathering for announcements. Mark and his call-to-arms whistle are synonymous. We discovered that there were no new-timers with us tonight, but found a whole slew of skaters with us for the third or fourth time. Thomas S and John M were just two of this category.

“Where’re we eatin’ tonight?,” was the first comment made during the announcements. Everything else said was less important. Most of us already knew the answer. If there were ever to be a flipped coin option, heads would be Fellini’s on Ponce and tails would be- Fellini’s on Ponce. Mr. Chapman gave us the results of the Long Beach Inline Skating Marathon race. He reported that both Bruce B and Jenni X performed extremely well. He also mentioned that Jennifer H beat him to the finish line, but his comment about this quickly became more mumble that clear; and not only did we not understand him, all of us have now forgotten about this issue.

Click here for the results of the Long Beach Inline Skating Marathon

“Who wants-ta go camping?,” announced Mark D. Before I go any further, let me tell you about this. You can’t possibly have any more fun than searching for what ever is left in the cooler, huddling-up next to a super large bon fire in the middle of some dark trees, making & eating Smore’s, and talking trash about make-believe bear stories. Big Foot ones too. Plus, you can go on wild excursions, like the one we had last year to search for firewood. We had Mark’s big ol’ red pick-up truck so loaded down with dead trees that I could-ov sworn that we’d never make it out of that deep part of the forest. “Ah we need just a little bit more,” Mark would keep saying. On top of the pile of cut-down dead wood sat a pile of cut-up, tired skaters. We finally made it back to base camp, looked into the empty coolers, and immediately started talking again about bears. We spent the rest of the day splitting wood and creating tentative routes of where to split from our imaginary bears. Invariably, the consistent answer was the safety of our sleeping bags.

The scheduled camping weekend – up at Amicalola Falls – is to be the weekend of November 14-16. This happens to be the weekend after the Claxton bicycle race, near Savannah.

Chuck O’s description of Roller Soccer to Kathryn Z: “It’s a combination of hackey-sac and soccer. There’s a goal, but to score a point, everyone on your team must touch the ball without one of your opponents touching the ball. If the opposing team touches the ball, then your team must start all over.”
Without seeing a lit-up, billboard style scoreboard across the playing field from her, Kathryn asked how the players keep track of their team’s score. “No keeping track, it’s all played friendly,” was Chuck’s reply.