5/1/2008 Root Ball

When we arrived in Asheville Friday for Heather's shower we stayed at Jason's parent's house in Haw Creek. After a month of exclusive adult/baby contact I was itching to go somewhere and do something non-baby related for a few hours. After hanging out with the Robinsons for a while Jason, Cassie and I decided to go to the Root Bar, a one of a kind drinking establishment named for a game invented by the founders. The "back yard" of the bar is a fenced in, sand covered expanse with three Root Ball courses. The game is a cross between horse shoes and bacci ball, except that you toss a ring, and then toss a ball at the ring, or the stake. Everyone removes their shoes and meanders around, sloshing pints of beer ; It's great fun! The root bar is the fourth closest bar to my house in Asheville. We can't go to Rascals because we all got kicked out after Kelly and Heidi's wedding, we can't go to Ruby's because we are boycotting it, and we can't go to Norton's because thats where my Drunkle Charles lives. For the time being the Root Bar is our "neighborhood pub".
Jason had never been there so he was immediately skeptical about the place. We bought beers and made our way to the back yard, as far away from the other patrons as possible. Jason and Cassie chatted together, catching up on her work and the current events of Harlan County KY, and Jason spiraled into a pit of unhappiness brought on by trying to provide answers to the world's problems in twenty minutes or less. I was determined to enjoy myself and ignore Jason's misery for that evening, and I started chatting with this pleasant fellow who had ska-danced over to our outpost.

This guy was all smiles and wanted to share a story with us regarding his residence in Maui. It went something like this:

"I used to live in Maui for, like six years with a bunch of other beautiful people and it was Awwwwesome! We just lived on the beach and ate fruit and loved. One night we all did this Hopi Sweat Ritual where you eat a bunch of mushrooms and get inside a tee-pee with a hot fire burning and you sweat all of the negative energy out of your body. Totally Killer! We had been there for hours and we had all stripped down and were tripping soo hard! It felt like we were dying, but as soon as we got out it was like a new life, and we weren't tired anymore! It was the most AWESOME feeling ever, so there were, like, 10 of us, all shapes and sizes, all beautiful people, naked on the beach, running around and jumping in the ocean. It was the best feeling ever swimming in the ocean after being so hot!
We stayed on the beach and fell asleep, and when we woke up it was because a huge bus was parking at the edge of the beach and, like, 40 old, white people were pouring out of it and coming towards us. When they got up close to us we thought they were going to call the police or something but you know what they did? They stripped down and started running around having fun, too!"

The fellow then asked if we wanted to play Root Ball, which Cassie and I did but couldn't quite rouse Jason, even after hearing that amazingly enlightening story.

I told our new friend that we would play with him in 5 minutes, or after we extinguished our cigarettes and bought new beers etc.. He went back inside and I didn't see him again for about 45 minutes, when I saw him emerge from the pub with our friend, Don. Jason was still busy outlining the world's problems so I went over and greeted Don and finally introduced myself to the nudist, Jacob. Don was fired up to play and with his incentive we were able to rescue Jason from his pit of dispair. Don is one of those people who I wouldn't describe as a particularly "happy" person, but whenever he is around he instills others with happiness.

We started playing the game after a brief instructional from Don. The temperature had dropped so Jason had gone to the car to get some jackets for he and Cassie. Jason had to wear my teal down parka and it was so funny! The waist had elastic and it was really high up, and the sleeves were three quarter sleeves on him. AND it was bright teal. I only wish I had gotten a picture. It lightened the mood of the evening even more seeing Jason seriously playing the game in that coat.

It was boys versus girls and the score remained close for the first half of the game. Then Jason and Don started whopping up on us, and then this throw happened:



That is Don consulting with Jacob about a rare toss. Cassie ingeniously named it the NeuvoRing. Needless to say the boys won the game.