Thursday, June 23, 2005

Tennis on the misty moors

Tonight, as I do just about every Thursday when the weather is fine, I gathered at a local park for the weekly tennis throwdown. The usual tennis complement includes SS, Spec, Jack Thunder, Raisinette, TP, Shirtless, and Dr. Actually. Tonight it was only SS, TP, Spec, Raisinette, and Jack.

Even though the temperature was in the upper 80s and the humidity was fairly high, we handled ourselves okay. But there was one strange bit of business. About an hour into the match what do you think we heard drifting across the play fields? No guess?

Normally you would say random 14 year old girls cheering like it was a football game (and sadly they are not cheering for, nor watching us play). For at the park that we frequent, there are always two softball games going on in the evening. And, for whatever reason, these girls cheer everything--especially doubles. Every time someone hits one they chant "_______ got a double and we've gotta shout it!" or something like that. All you have to remember is that it is distracting and annoying.

But tonight, in addition to that noise, we had the aforementioned new noise--something that I don't think you would guess if you tried for two hours--BAGPIPES!

It was a bit of a shock. The dude was just standing by himself under a picnic pavilion, pointed away from the tennis courts, the kids play area, the basketball courts, and the softball fields. Maybe he was conjuring up the misty moors of Scotland . . . I dunno, but he played off and on for about twenty-five minutes.

The repertoire included "Amazing Grace" (natch), something that sounded like "When the Saints Go Marching In" (but only played somewhere around three-quarter speed), and something else that I couldn't identify.

I rather liked the unexpectedness of it all, but I think it bothered some of my courtmates. Oh well. These things makes life worth living; well, that and a reliable forehand.


In other news, I found out today (via Stretch) that my blog has been featured on a different site. You can see the link here and then scroll down about a third of the way to the bottom. The website picked up a description of our travels this past Christmas. Stretch was looking for my site, Googled "Why Won't You Grow" and found this link. I didn't know anything about this until today. I am excited and perplexed about the whole thing. As to what is going on at this site, I couldn't begin to tell you. It almost has the feel of an automated search engine that just pulls random stuff together if it fits pre-selected criteria.

But, that's okay, because that is how I write this stuff anyway.

2 comments:

lulu said...

It's really depressing to see what happens when you google "rural fetish". I wouldn't do it--unless you need to find new sources for degenerate internet porn. Not a quilt or chicken site in sight! Bummer.

Pretty much the same holds true for "all life is a blur...". Oh well.

Sven Golly said...

Oh yeah? You think that's bad! (I hate openings like that, but this is really cathartic.) A house we rented in Home Park, a little corner of NW Atlanta where Helga was born, had the smallest yard in Fulton County, and our backyard neighbor played his bagpipes every Saturday morning. Big burly guy. Are they all big burly guys? At the time I enjoyed it, the novelty maybe, or the ancestral memory, whatever, and I probably thought the wee Jess Golly would benefit from hearin' the sounds of his folk, or some such nonsense. Ah the pipes, the pipes...