Day 4

Day 4

I'm kind of tired of eating out, so make myself a couple great peanut butter sandwiches on the loaf of currant bread I brought.  I pick up more film (camera and camcorder), want to take a lot of photos today, and record the games. 

The fields today are near the airport, but they're also well-kept, a pleasure to play on.  Colder today, a little breeze too, some clouds, we're all cold standing around waiting to play.  

Game three is also a loss, although we're starting to play just a little better.  I'm starting to get to know the other players on our team, I only know 3-4 of them from Ithaca.  Eric is a builder, huge fella, he plays up front.  Ibe is our manager, I think from Uganda, plays well but complains a lot on the field.  Adam and Dave are brothers.  Tim is with the Fish and Wildlife service, he has just spent time critiquing the fracking Environmental Impact Statement.  His brother-in-law Troy runs an outdoors business in Telluride, CO.  John is a surgeon at the hospital in Ithaca, Tomas is a doctor at the VA in Syracuse.  Roger is a teacher, used to live in Ithaca, now lives in Las Vegas.  He brought his friends George, Tony, and Vasili, all Eastern-Europeans, great players... but who chain-smoke between games.   Joe is a contractor from Cortland, getting ready to run the Boston marathon.  We're playing over-40, but our average age is probably 50, maybe next year we'll play in the over-48 division.  Chris is 55, I'm guessing the oldest, even though he runs like a gazelle.  I'm guessing I'm second-oldest at 53.

We wait for the last game, but the other team does not show up, so we win our only game, by forfeit.  We'd rather play and lose.  But then a group of Hispanic kids show up, so we decide to play pickup, and probably have the most fun of the weekend, as the sun sets over the red mountains.

Tomorrow we'll leave the soccer and this great mecca of artifice behind, and go hiking in the mountains.  
I am reminded of the Buddhist saying, which I'm paraphrasing a little:  "There they sit, the mountain peak and the soccer pitch, till only the peak remains."