Curling and Canada

This is it, my friends, the blog which I've threatened to write for a long time. Or, at least, since last June when I fired it up. Today I speak about two of the best things in my world: curling and Canada.

Curling is a grand game played on ice where we sweep in front of 42 pound granite stones to make them go farther and bend in less of an arc. Does that sound odd to you? Well, it shouldn't. Okay, perhaps it should, but no more than shooting a ball through a hoop or a puck into a net. It's fun, it's strategic, but most importantly it's a team game where sportsmanship is paramount. You know, sportsmanship, where you play as though it really was a game to be enjoyed with friends rather than a match of smack talk and bravado. You actually congratulate the other team when they make a fine shot, almost as though that were a rule of the game. More sports could use a dose of that attitude, and I must say that it has blunted, to a degree anyway, the rough competitive edge I have when I play sports. I think that's a good thing.

Canada, meanwhile, is my great neighbor to the south. Yes, any Yanks reading this, Canada is south of Detroit, where I live. It is a really cool nation of good people and good graces. I curl there, and everyone at the Roseland curling club has been very kind to me, including me among themselves as though I were a native. They are truly among my greatest friends; there isn't a better group of folks to hang out with on Earth. That they put up with me is a testament to their ability to get along with anyone. I love them. I would start naming names except that I would inadvertently forget one or two and that would be wrong. But you guys know who you are.

Last night was my third and last curling banquet of the year, which means I'll be in Canada only occasionally until the curling season season begins again in the fall.

It will be a long summer.