CELEBRATIONS

I watched only bits and pieces of the NBA playoffs. (I confess.) Since I was a little kid in Massachusetts, my family was way too agro about their sports--and sports loyalties. Dad was a football player in the "leatherhead" days--a semi-pro quarterback who got hit so hard and so often he has had back operations that criss-cross his body with Frankenstein scars, and resultant arthritis. At 84, he's spent most of his adult life in chronic pain. Today's advanced technology lets him keep moving on his feet, but, it's no wonder neither of my brothers ever were into becoming star players for the football team. But Dad knows all the high school players in town. He still screams as he watches pro football, on t.v. When he dies, it will probably be from a stroke during Super Bowl, or a poorly swallowed peanut.

When I wanted to play softball, in the Jackson Playground League, I tried out and was made a nine year old outfielder. (Everybody made the team. Most of us played outfield...) I had no glove. It was required. Mom took me to a department store--the sports section. She got me a half rubber, half plastic glove. It was so stiff I couldn't bend my hand in it--even after it heated up in the afternoon sun . It didn't have a pocket. It had "cracks". I tried the way my Dad had told me it was done--oil, rubber bands, working it--all that accomplished was to grease it up and make it stink. No way to "break it in". (If I turned it on its side, maybe I could have caught an errant grasshopper.) My younger brothers had leather, official gloves before they were out of diapers. Such were the days I grew up in. I lasted for three weeks, and then quit. I liked swimming and climbing on rocks better, anyway.

In junior high, even though I was short, I was a guard on the basketball team...sort of. I made up, in passion, what I didn't have in skills or size. My Mom came to one game and was so embarrassed, she came up with legit excuses to keep her from attending the others. No one had ever explained the intricate rules of girls' basketball (different in those days). They assumed anyone trying out just knew. (I didn't. Mine wasn't a basketball family.) All I ever did, even in pick up games in the neighborhood, was shoot. Period. So even though, at my worst moment, I travelled about twenty yards with the ball held against my chest (after wrestling it from a stick-thin, six foot, opposing team member) and didn't realize that you didn't get to take all those steps before shooting , (I just thought I was free and had made a cool move), I did have fun. Mom never let me forget "You weren't very good", when I started fighting for women's rights to athletic scholarship funding... My ability,or lack, wasn't quite the point... (Seems I never have been able to pass up a fight.)

I tried out for the fencing team, in college. Again, I had to learn all the rules of scoring, as well as the intricate dance of basic fencing. I was paired with people who had gone to "fencing camps" for summer breaks...My first contest was with a guy who was mostly in the class to learn about "different weapons". He was used to Medieval Times sword and sorcery play. He had taken martial arts weapons classes for his high school years. No one else in the class wanted to fence with him. The coach paired us up--probably figuring that if anyone was to take a bruising, I was the sturdiest looking girl in the group. (Oh yeah,he was the sole male member...) He proved himself by "attacking" and literally "fighting" me across the gym and backing me into the farthest wall, while everyone in the place looked on in surprise and horror. The coach didn't even try to stop it. (When I watch "GLEE", I am reminded of her.) That was the final fencing session I attended.

I am into solo sports, like kayaking or back-packing. I enjoy one or two other people with me, but basically, when I'm outside, I want to hear the birds, smell the air (not other folks' sweat), and be free of things like uniforms and screaming crowds. I want to challenge myself, not another team. And while I want to improve at anything I do, winning a trophy for that improvement isn't the point. There's enough bloodsport in my life.

So, this week, when the Lakers beat the Celtics, I expected the sportsbar down the block to erupt into a frenzy and the streets to be filled with firecrackers, drunk fans and lots of noise. Instead, two fog horns blew outside in the parking lot. Then, a lot of screaming cars peeled out and it was relatively quiet. It seems that everyone drove, in drunken hilarity (or rage) to Staples Center, where they wanted to "celebrate with the Team"!

The celebration, of course, erupted into a full out riot, with burning taxis and LAPD in tactical gear cracking heads. (Even as people knew the "official celebration", costing over a million dollars in a city that is totally broke, will be on Monday, including a two mile parade. ) This part of fan idolatry, I don't get. At all. If sport is about building one's character, setting tons of fires in the city seems a bit at odds with that. Smashing heads against other people who also support your
team is an action I can't say I support. But what do I know? I'm from outside Boston...(Dad only grunted about the Celtics losing, when I called him for Fathers' Day.)

Meanwhile, World Cup battles on and somewhere, the Gay Pride Festival rages. Oh, what a town!