Your team is behind by one with less than five minutes to go. There is a large crowd but they are all just two steps above ambivalent. Disappointment lurks in the background but it is not foremost on masses minds. Everyone is waiting for something to happen to make them care, to give them hope.

One minute is left.

You are disappointed. Streaks are coming to an end. You haven’t been to many games and you rue your luck – being there to see it end. The team makes it’s desperate move – pulling the goalie in favor of an extra offensive player. You wonder how traffic will be after the game. You wonder how your wife is doing. You wonder what the rest of the weekend will bring. At ten seconds the player with potential, a label that lingers like an unfulfilled promise, gets the puck near the goal. No one is in position to stop the puck but the other team’s goalie. He makes his move and flicks the puck at the net. Movement barely registers on the goalie as the puck sails unmolested into the net.

The beast has awakened.

You are on your feet, hands thrust in the air. You are screaming – not that you could tell with the noise around you. The noise of the crowd hurts, but it feels so good. Like gasoline on a fire, it feeds you with raw power. Like a fire the crowd, the moment, consumes you. There is no you. There is just emotion. There is just release.
–DAV:EXTENDED BODY:

You know what they say, if you’ve got to try…

I was finishing up the self appointed task of tidying up the family room. Mind you this was not a run of the mill tidying; but a furniture rearranging, inventory sorting, junk tossing, lifestyle assessing rumble in the jungle. Did I mention that I didn’t eat lunch?

The next thing I know I’m driving to Cheryl’s parent’s place to visit with the Canadians. Did I mention they are french Canadians; French speaking french Canadians? Visits with these same French speaking french Canadians have had all the thrill of a foreign film without subtitles. With this kind of buildup, can you imagine how grumpy I was when we got there and they were all outside smoking on the patio? We went inside and watched T.V. – by ourselves. At least we didn’t miss the subtitles.

Dinner rolled around and I didn’t say much. The French speaking french Canadians stopped smoking to come in and eat. They did a lot of speaking in their native tongue and I did a lot of brooding over my plate. Chances are I was giving off signals, because by the time desert rolled around one of the better english speakers started translating a few of the amusing anecdotes, trying to explain why everyone was laughing every now and again in order to bring me into the fold. We even had a few brief discussions, mostly small talk fare. The bottom line was this: they were good people, It’s just so hard to be friendly when your tired, hungry and you don’t know your visitor’s language.