Fools all of us!
“What time are we rolling?” I ask before grabbing a bite to eat and heading off to work. “Fools baby! Our year!!!”
“In the car at 1. Tell Joey to meet us in front of his house. And tell him we’re not waiting.” Of course we’d wait, and of course Joey would not be in front of his house when we arrived.
“Hi boys,” he might have said when we arrive to check on his readiness. “Just packing up a few things.”
This the time of year when east coast ultimate comes back to life after a period of hibernation, one of the great attributes of living in the region. Yes! winter. A chance to recharge, which might sound counter intuitive, but I found to be true. With spring, summer, and fall dedicated to playing in tournaments, to traveling around the region and later around the country and the world — winter, oh winter became the time when we just relaxed, skied a bit, and maybe played some pick-up basketball. Sure, there might be a game of ultimate in a foot of new snow, but that would be about it. It would be years before we discovered tournaments like Tempe and Sarasota, tournaments that defied the cold of Boston. Until then, we just hunkered down and waited for FoOls.
In the beginning, we played on the Mall, then Manassas near the famous Civil War battle field at Bull Run, and finally in Fredericksburg at another historically significant war location. All just south enough to take on a warmth not felt at home since October. Pale skin and weak muscles piled into our various cars for the ten-hour drive, which later became short flights and rental cars after we’d secured lucrative enough jobs to afford such luxury.
Karl Cook’s images have me thinking about this first weekend in April, he and Eric Knudson there welcoming us upon arrival, friendly faces after months of not seeing the people we’d grown accustom to being with weekend after weekend, months on end. A large group of friends attached by the throwing of plastic, to dancing to The English Beat, Clash and Specials, to the reckless abandon we subjected our bodies. And no better time and place to restart the fun than on the first of April, on fields that occasionally flooded when the Fredericksburg River rose up over its banks.
FoOls! Synonymous with wind, rain and mud — diving in it synonymous with opening of the season.
“What are they thinking?” teams would say of us when we lined-up for our individual turns at dive factor, a bodily sacrifice to the gods of a sport we revered. “That’s nuts!” They’d say. It was, and wet, and cold. But also a rite of passage we couldn’t resist, FoOls all of us, bounding out of winter, out of doldrums and into the spirit of a game called ultimate.
FoOls the best example of playing for the fun of it. Later years would attract reunion teams, college friends, chances to play with people you would otherwise consider rivals. A chance to throw not only discs in the wind, which invariably blew, but caution too. It was our chance to try new things, wear crazy hats, design wild shirts and come up with nutty names followed by equally ludicrous cheers.
Almost to the day some forty years ago, and to my parent’s total bewilderment, I quit my first job when my boss grounded me by not giving me this weekend off to play in DC. “FoOlish decision,” they all must have said when I left soon after without another in hand. I’d just moved to Boston when the opportunity arose to play with and then form a National caliber team. Stuck in a dead-end retail job selling cameras, I needed my weekends off. So I quit. A year later, and from then on, I made the weekend trek to DC, and with it, joined the ranks of the forever FoOlish!
(all images copyright Steve Mooney)
