liTtle viCtoRieS

im not sure, but i think i may have missed my calling in life. let me explain... i was mistaken in my last post about this past weekend's festivities including croquet. that was not on the agenda, however a horseshoe tournament was. coming into this weekend, i was not aware of how the game of horseshoes was played. id known of the game, but it was all hypothetical to me as id never actually seen or experienced it played before. so when i was told that id been paired up with somebody for the weekend's big tourney, i felt i was going into this whole thing rather blindly. i had no idea what to expect. let me further let you know that down where we were, there are some serious, kick-ass horseshoe players. this is no understatement, these people take there horseshoe play seriously. it was intimidating no doubt. yet, perhaps i work best under pressure because despite all of these obstacles that i faced, i was able to perservere. so anyways, we start the tournament around 2 saturday afternoon. there are brackets pre-arranged ( it kinda felt like the ncaa tournament a little..) and my partner (J.P...who is Radonna's stepbrother) are up first game. keep in mind, id never held a horseshoe before, and it certainly showed. although my partner was able to keep the game tight, we ended up losing 21-17 or something like that. if anyone cares to know the details of the rules involved in horseshoes, just call me, ill spare you right now. lucky for us, this tournament is double elimination. so we move into the loser's bracket. needless to say, it was a few hours before we were up again as the rest of the teams had there go at it. losers were placed in the loser's bracket (duh) and winner's kept on going. this is the turning point in the story. J.P. and i were rounded up around 5 to begin play in the loser's bracket. i don't know if it was the couple hour break or if it was all the acrewed knowledge id gotten watching everyone else play, but something began to click, and we, well, we freakin rocked. granted, J.P. definently carried most of the weight, i did contribute here and there, and 4 wins later we found ourselves winners of the loser's bracket which meant we were to face the winners of the winners bracket for the championship. this just happened to be radonna and her brother which made for a bitter family rivalry, well not really, but my dad did have a tough time choosing who to cheer for. because they had yet to lose, we had to beat them twice. we were nearly losing light at this point as it was close to 8, yet we were still holding strong. the first game was back and forth, a real nail-biter, yet J.P. and i pulled through barely escaping with a 21-19 victory. second game starts and we were out for the kill, as was proven early as we both threw ringers (yes, i know this is horseshoe lingo, but i am a horseshoe player now and can use it.) which means we got the horseshoe around the little pole thing which gave us a 10-0 lead. another rule,which again u can ask me later if u really care about, led us to skunk them after scoring 1 more point thereby winning the entire tournament. it was fantastic. there were no fireworks or anything as we scored the last point, although im surprised there weren't quite honestly just b/c of the importance this game holds to these people. there were no trophies either for the winners, but there were lottery tickets, like 10 of them that we split. i actually won 7$ for my efforts and cashed them in this morning, which was another first for me, id never won in the lottery before. so, in conclusion, it was a weekend of firsts. it was exciting and fun and has led me to believe that i may need to consider quitting school once again and pursue my career in horseshoes.