Category: Kingston Society for Playing Catch

The Rules For 500 Up

I know I am not supposed to post twice on a Friday but I have just had two shocks. I met someone my age who had no idea what 500 Up was and, when I described the game, reported not having ever played anything like it. That was shock one.

I though 500 Up was a great universal. I thought it was primordial. Now I Google “500 Up” and only my post pops up as referencing the game. This is really weird. It is like I mentioned bread – or at least popsicles – and realizing the people I was talking to had never heard of them.

Sloan has a song called “500 Up” off of their first record. Here are the lyrics. Disturbingly, the game is only there as a passing reference, an analogy mixed with another image – a reference only one in the know would know:

Sliding downwards
You’re the batter
That’s what they say
500 up
On the ladder

Do you know the rules to 500 Up? Why is this not on the internet somewhere? That is shock number two. Now I have to know. Are there different points to catching the ball in the air and fewer points for getting it on a bounce? How many points? Did you decide how many before each time you played? I haven’t played it for 21 years. I haven’t played Kingston Nova Scotia stickball for 35. That was a hell of a game.

Village Games

I was sent off on a YouTube adventure by a kind reader of note who last evening sent me emails with videos of cheese rolling attached like this one and all these.

That got me thinking that maybe there were videos of the ancient pre-football village games that happen at holidays. And there were. Like Royal Shrovetide Football you can watch here. Kind of weirdly but appropriately put to music. I think this is that game explained on wikipedia. Here is another – this from Orkney. Again set to music. Here is a web page on that game. Nothing on Winchester College Football on YouTube yet.

As we start moving from the recreational and civic holidays of the warm half of the year to the traditional holidays of the darker half, I am reminded that village and community are interesting things which are not like suburbs, workplaces or shopping malls or even families. The internet will only create real community when this sort of game starts up, including people you do not necessarily like doing things together you do not necessarily understand because you must. Maybe it has and maybe it hasn’t. Maybe that is what the Kingston Society for Playing Catch is to be. I will only know if anyone gets the hat and even then likely not.

My New KSPC Hat

 

 

 

It came in the mail today. My 7-1/2 hand made wool 1950s Kansas City hat. This is one serious hat. Leather rim on the inside. Warm real wool on my head. All organic, it’s like having something alive on your head, settling in and finding its place as it learns your real needs.

This is a fine fine hat for the Kingston Society for Playing Catch to consider as its model for this year, not far off this suggestion. A fine hat to listen to Darcey’s Friday night Blues and Beer or NCPR’s The Folk Show under. Well made by the Cooperstown Ballcap Co. Their Keokuk Colonels 1960 cap would make another fine selection as a KSPC hat.

Is This The Hat For The KSPC?

Now that the “Kingston Society for Playing Catch” (KSPC) has been founded and the flood of offers for branches world-wide have begun to pour in, the important question of the cap is rearing its head. There must be a cap. I don’t know if this is it. Kingston’s traditional sporting colours are black and yellow. A black hat with a simple “K” in yellow might be just the thing. Each branch would have the one-letter logo in local colours.

But that one letter would have to be in common font to go with the “KSPC” on the back to maintain the global identity. I lost sleep over the weekend on the question of font. The right font is a massive decision with brainiacs a plenty out there who know what needs to be known. If it could be a Pabst Oldstyle “K” that might be the best. Yes, I like Pabst and not just because of PBR or, rather, the PBRs.

Friday Cogitiferiffic Chatarama

Who the hell ever thought I would make it to August 25th 2006? Aside from the whole thing in Mexico in ’66 (thank you Pepe), I got through the nuclear war along with all of you, got through my teens without being eaten by a backroad ditch along with pals, got though a holiday in Paris as Syria was blowing bits of it up in ’86 and survived the Kings Cross Fire in ’87. Things got a little dull after that and law school and stuff but then there was the 5.4 earthquake in ’97 and that weird day in PEI around Jan. ’03 when I decided to head out of work early and got caught in a blizzard that was so thick I could only make out where the road was by checking out the tops of telephone polls. Whew. What a roller coaster. But here we are. August 25, 2006. Woot. I’m taking half a day to celebrate.

– Final lunchtime update before hitting the road update: I just created the “Kingston Society for Playing Catch” after looking at the picture of David Sommerstein of NCPR at this page. Expect splintering schismists branching out into “Adult Novice 500 Up” but that is their business and may also morph into a heritage group playing trapball and the other early games. The “Kingston Society for Playing Catch” is hereby soliciting membership as well as designs for the hat which must feature a “K” on the front. Submissions and proposals to be posted here.

– Update for the road update: As I did so triumphantly for “flogging”, I just now coined “clogging” for filling up the comments section of a blog with technically incapable comments or, I suppose, just going on and on…like this.

– It is a sad, sad day when the yapping of bloggers is not what shapes the news but is the news. Bo-ring. Everyone lay on the floor, wiggle around now and scream as one – “STOP PRETENDING BLOGS ARE NEWS!!!” I heard you . Thanks.

– There are men of destiny and then there are others who are not:

The owner of a restaurant named after Adolf Hitler said yesterday he will change its name because it angered so many people.

– I am watching the post- or to some mid- conflict reaction in Israel. Remember this post from last month. The concern appears to be mainly the lack of ability to impose immediate overwhelming force as opposed to ultimate peace – which is fine but the taxi driver may not have had that breath of relief. It is such a foreign existence it is hard to even imagine it.

– One clawed back. Five and a half to go.

– Gary’s Blogger blog has taken off nicely. Interesting post on pottery restoration services. Now there is a situation that requires a van with a big engine and the right to break the speed limit – Vrrrooommmmm. I say it gets designated the all important and still available purple flashing light.

– Have you noticed that certain cheater-ramas have entirly poached the Friday bullet idea? I knew I should have copyrighted this fantastic idea when I had the chance. Imagine the dollar bills flowing over my upstretched face and arms. Imagine.

Isn’t that enough? Off to see the newest member of the clan who is supposed to enter this world around noon and then off to grannie-in-law’s to talk sports of the 1920s to today. When is someone going to try that music format of “the music of the 20th century” anyway? Al Jolson then Ramones then “The Biggest Aspidistra In The World” then ringing my bell.