Capture the flag and bombardment....aka dodgeball...........

I have been thinking about the joy of running lately. When you hit 60 you may jog.....you may even have spurts during a tennis match, but rarely do you just flat out run like you did as a kid. I started thinking about my years in boy scouts. I think some of the games we played shaped my personality. I would wait all week to play dodgeball at the end of the scout meeting. I liked it because I was a fifth grader, but I could go after high school kids. I remember gaining the respect of people who were 5 or 6 years older who were plastering my peers, but I would catch their balls, bounce their multiple thrown balls and then take out one of the older ones in one smooth motion. I lived to play dodgeball. I liked the risk. I liked looking at impossible odds with superior players.....and having this deep seated aggressiveness which just flourished in this game.

Now in scouting we would camp once a month through the year. When we would get in the woods we would play capture the flag. The territories were huge and usually wooded. I simply waited all month to get out into the woods to play this game. I could run faster than people many years older, and I was for whatever reason a leader who could convey a strategy which the people on my team trusted....we always won.....we won with team play and our guile.

I think back at how much I miss the joy of running or playing dodgeball......yes, I still play golf.....I guess it kinda fills my competitive urges....but to play one more capture the flag......one more dodgeball.......oh the joy of youth and adventure.

It is now called Paintball. Can be a Hell of a rush.

I turned 50 this year and tried to get in good enough shape to play the fifty and over national championships. I've played tennis at a national level since I was a 10 year old. I had a terrible time... my knees and back simply haven't allowed me to compete. It's very frustrating... I think if I could stay healthy long enough to get stronger I could turn the corner... but it's not happening. I may have just put too many miles on this body... I'm going to try again for next years tourns tho.

At 50 I was playing on two basketball teams, two softball teams, and playing a 100 rounds of golf a year.....with each year it simply is very difficult to stay at a level which is satisfactory. Although my knees would ache for two days after a basketball game....that was not the reason I gave it up.....it was not moving my feet to stop and defend a player......I always played tough defense......It became embarrassing. I loved tennis, but I broke my right arm in a basketball game in eighth grade, and while I had the cast on I played tennis left handed for about eight weeks until they took the cast off. The result was a fatally flawed game thereafter. I would switch the racquet from my right hand to my left hand, rather than planting and hitting a solid backhand. People were amazed at how easily I did it, but you could never play good tennis with that flaw. I joined a league once, and it was fun, but what I found frustrating was matching talent so that the games would be a good workout. If you were better than your opponent......you simply were bored.....and if your opponent was better......you were frustrated.....however a close match was a wonderful thing. We worked over the league's schedule to get those quality matches to line up with available talent. I also loved playing on clay....and did not know what it was until I was living in Mexico and got to play on some great clay courts. I had always played on asphalt.