August 11, 1995
Dear Everyone:
Things have been
going fairly quietly the past few weeks.
Traffic is lighter, so it takes less time to get to and from
work. Fewer phone calls and
interruptions once you are at work.
I’ve actually gotten some new Report Formats done for
Versatile.
All because it’s Summer and a certain percentage of the
population is off somewhere else and out of our way, at least for a few
more weeks.
Saw
The Net
last weekend.
Sandra Bullock
plays a computer virus specialist who stumbles across a program she’s
not supposed to and right away people start dying because Bad Guys have
altered the information in hundreds of computer systems.
What little value it might have as a warning that computers know
too much about us all, and that the privacy laws are woefully behind the
technology, is lost in the silly, completely predictable plot.
Even the popcorn wasn’t very good.
Wait for it to show up on the
USA Network.
Remark from someone
at work this week: “Since
you probably don’t know any more about
football
than you do about
baseball...” I beg to
differ! I certainly do know
the difference between a baseball and a football.
Baseballs are the ones that bounce straight.
Just because I don’t
waste any of my time paying attention to professional sports doesn’t
mean I didn’t play my fair share of backyard football games as a
youngster. I can still
remember watching “Richard” and “Marshall” trying to tackle big brother
“Byron”, he being the one with the ball in his possession.
There would be “Byron”, wading across the goal line, dragging
little brothers along, each one grimly hanging on to an ankle for all
they were worth.
Clearly, two against
one wasn’t fair enough odds.
So I was added to the equation, not on “Richard” and “Marshall’s” team,
but on “Byron’s”. Me, they
could tackle. My job was to
act as a handicap for “Byron” and, if I may say so, I performed
brilliantly. Hike the ball,
block the tackle, get out from under the tackle, run to the roses, catch
the pass, get creamed within inches of the goal line.
Who says I know nothing about football?
We would play all
summer long and on weekends until the autumn rains made the ground too
wet to tackle someone without running the risk of drowning.
After that, we tried switching to “touch” football, but that
never worked because it was predicated on the honor system:
The “touchee” had to admit to having been tagged.
This usually led to a conversation like this:
“I tagged you!”
“Did not!”
“Did so!”
“Well, I didn’t feel
it!” This despite a bruise
the size of a grapefruit where the “tag” had landed.
Then we’d go back to
tackling, which was less refutable, particularly in view of the large
splash that would accompany it.
Eventually, unlike
professional football, we’d come to our senses and agree that it was
just too cold and wet to play outside anymore and would repair to the
basement to play
basketball. This
required at least three people:
Two to play one-on-one and a third to climb up on top of the old
jukebox and be the
basket.
Love, as always,
Pete
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