Takeoff

Exhausted already. The good people at blogger say you can be taking off in five minutes. Certainly, the process is as user-friendly as it can be, in my estimation. But then I get to this "name your blog" screen and my screen goes blank. I tried a few of those clever ones that evidently many have tried before me. Tried "thistitleistaken" and it was taken.

I finally reached deep into my psyche and pulled out "streetpolo". Street polo is a game a friend and I created in our youth while trying to cope with suburban adolescent angst. It involved objects at hand - croquet mallets and a tennis ball. We'd chalk a court and mid-court line, with a three foot long goal at each end. A player, going one-on-one, had to reach the opposing player's court, hit the ball against the curbs on both sides of the street, then shoot the ball into the goal (and then chase the ball down the street), while the other player was defending and trying to strip him of the ball.

I thought the most elegant rule was that the game was divided into four periods, and each period ended when a car drove by. The venue was a relatively little traveled side street. However, some games were over very quickly.

Although the blog is named for this game, it is doubtful that the game will be mentioned again here.