Whew

Just came back from "field day" at Lamb's school. The gym teacher organized lots of outdoor games around the school. This morning Lamb asked me if I could help out, so I said of course I could.

It was a nice day for it and I was asked to run the sponge game that starts with a big bucket with water and sponges and ends in small empty buckets. The first team to fill their target bucket wins.

But with minutes to go before the games started, the buckets for the game were barely damp because the hose being used to fill them was either locked in "dribble" setting or nobody had turned the water on all the way. And of course the water at the school needs a special tool to turn.

So with water dribbling in, and the major source of "new" water the water sponged into the target buckets after each round and returned to the big bucket, I modified the game from an under-and-over sponge pass line to the target bucket to a simple sponge walk where each team took turns taking the sponge to the target bucket. The idea of having the kids pass filthy-water-filled sponges over their heads revolted me. I'm no clean freak, but that original plan with insufficient new water had water-borne illness written all over it. So I went with the walking method. Hopefully the powers that be won't be upset because I called an audible at the line rather than the called play. Nobody fell down my way, so no harm, no foul, eh?

With another parent on call with the hose to fill buckets with a newly opened faucet and functioning hose and by switching out extra big buckets I kept the game rolling without interruption. The man with the hose was on call between my game and another so it was a tough balancing act.

I delegated to the teachers the job of declaring winners in each class's contest. Let them take the flak, I say.

The kids had a ball. Every once in a while a contestant made the classic mistake of dipping the sponge in the target bucket and lowering the water level. Oops. After the first time that happened, I briefed the next group about not doing that. I didn't want to call attention at the time and bring down the wrath of team mates on the poor, unfortunate child who made that mistake in the excitement of the moment.

I was so busy I barely had time to say hi to Lamb when she rolled through my station. But I was able to provide a hat for her to block the sun. So parent point right there, right? And I cheered her on by name when she was up to bat. But I couldn't even keep track of her at other stations just to see how she was doing.

I think I spent more time talking to J.T. Floyd, from the University of Michigan football team, than to Lamb. Not that I talked him up. Just wished him luck this coming season, said "Go Blue," and told him that my son and I never miss their games. He seems like a nice young man. That was pretty cool of him to go to a middle school event. I told Mister this was the one time he probably wishes he'd come to his little sister's school event.

And my final success was picking up two items of clothing dropped on the grass and wandering around the final joint event until I matched them up with their owners. I didn't want to just dump them in lost-and-found just before school lets out. Odds are they'd stay their over the summer and the kids would outgrow them.

Lamb had fun although she said she had a wide variety of minor scrapes and bruises from all the events.

This should be my last school duty of the year. I has planned to hit a downtown bar for a couple sidewalk drinks today and see if anyone I know could join me, but duty called. I'll miss this when my kids are too old for it, so I'm not complaining. Next week the bar and sunshine will still be there!