My last season with Academic Bowl

[jbuck919]

As the poet Swinburne wrote, "Even the mightiest river winds somewhere down to sea." What used to be a joy for me, something I have shared with you over the years, is now a colossal burden. It has always taken me four hours to complete a single game (and there are 15 of them in a season), but now, though the labor is entirely mental, by the time I'm done I can't find the strength to make myself a meal or go to the mailbox. The teachers/coaches understand, and I did get something of an ovation tonight (the last night of the regular season), but I am leaving a huge hole that no one knows how to fill. I know the old saying, that this hole is what your fist leaves in a bucket of water, but they are really going to have to put their heads together to continue this activity which is so important to the kids who participate in it. Just tonight I was thrilled by the level of performance I saw, and it was from secondary teams. Alas, that's not enough to keep me going.

Post-season play is on the 24th. That's three games in the same night instead of the usual two. I'm seriously considering staying in a hotel rather than making the long drive back to Stony Creek. Nobody needs a zombie on some of the roads I have to traverse here in the winter.

[lennygoran]

John I forgot-where is the academic bowl held? Len

[jbuck919]

John I forgot-where is the academic bowl held? Len

The host school is always Queensbury, up the road from Lake George. They do it purely out of the goodness of their heart. They are not paid a rental fee of any sort. Lake George itself would be the only alternative. The school has to be right off the Northway and have an adequate number of classrooms. Some of the schools spend hours getting to what to me seems a reasonably central location. It takes two hours, for instance, to get to Ticonderoga, and that's not even the farthest out school, yet their coach will appear to help out in the post-season play even if her own team is not involved. If you think I am humbled, you think correctly.

[lennygoran]

John thanks-I can see where that drive could really get to you-the older I get the harder it's become for me. We're very happy to have found Secaucus hotels-they get me to the port authority-the prices are usually great--I don't have to worry about parking or traffic in NYC and I can just sit back and read my smartphone messages and the Times. Len