March 2004 Goose Droppings

Where has The Time Gone Part II I've been so slack about the newsletter my notes aren't making sense anymore. (Is that muffled laughing I'm hearing?)

Twits vs Seattle Nobs: Feb 8 From some white guy's addled mind, a Twilighter Haka was performed. It got the Mojo workin'. A few guys sharpened their swords. Final 8-3 Twits. Gord, Jennifer, John Adams, Murk, Roger, Chuck Jung, Del and Garry Henry swarmed the Nobs goal. Nigel Townsend, Gilbert and George, the mobile prop, scored for the Nobs. Pres. Bob selected John Adams and Nigel as his Shooting Stars. John did have a pretty good game and if you let up on Nigel he'll kill ya'. Seattle tapped Garry Henry for their Man of the Match. On the Other Hand Coach Cook dished off his "More Help to the other Team" t-shirts to Ian "The Hobbit" Trevor who must have a closet of them now, and for Seattle, old Tommy who just returned from a sabbatical away from the game. Tommy was a member way back when the Seattle squad was called Seattle Old Guard or SOGGIES. What these 2 gentlemen got their "Georgie" for is anybody's guess.

Twits vs Legends: Feb. 15 Twits drop one to the Mermaidmen 2-1 No juju in the Haka this day. Perhaps it's true that white men can't "haka" as well as not jump. Legends have picked up a couple of speed demons and the back row looks pretty good with the addition of Matt Kokan (X-Kat! What's he doin' playing with all those X-Lomas?) Jim Davidson was a man on a mission, rampaging all over the field. Murk scored for the Blueman Cru. Coach Cook was hors de combat, victim of an all-night wake so Pee Wee had to pick up the slack and assume the duties of coach. His debut was not auspicious. After Turner's Irish Stew Peter Robinson tapped Nigel the standoff as the Legend's Tit of the Match for his crappy very short restart drop kick. You have to appreciate that Nigel usually never makes a mistake like that and can usually drop the ball anywhere on the field he wants. Anyway the award matches his head. A couple of new props did good for the Twits: Mark "Truck" Grigg, an executive chef, no less, and Tim Tukutau, Mumoi's bro. Welcome aboard, guys. Can't have too many props I always say.

Portland, Feb. 21

Saturday morning. Waiting at the Tudor Inn. Bus finally shows up. Yikes, not many bodies on board. Nick, Murk, Ian, Chuck Jung, Tyler, Steve Bal, Foggy, Turk, John Barton and Gerry Taylor are on the bus when George, Doc, Ron Ritchie, me and Glen Beauchamp embark from the Inn. Malcolm could have come but Inez had something planned for him from before his passport came back. A certain wing didn't make it…He was buying furniture...eeww Lance do you really think those cushions go with the drapes?...I don't know, I don't know. Anyway down I-5 we go, stopping at Mt. Vernon for brekkies. We get treated to Nick's copy of the England-Australia World Cup final on the video machine and about 4 hours of Fawlty Towers or Flowery Twats if you're reading the sign in front of the hotel. After several more hours we make it into Portland to the Doubletree Inn, get registered and then off to find the field. We're way south of the city and we finally pull into Clackamas Community College. Don Jenner and Jamie London are already there. It's getting late, we could change in the college but it's a half mile walk so we change on the bus. Everyone is getting themselves centered for the up-coming game, warming up, preparing mentally for the contest in their own fashion when George Cook, our coach, wanders around, raging about losing a sock, ranting about the dirty bastard who would steal a teammate's sock. It's not bad enough he's got himself in a state but he's got Foggy storming around looking for the elusive hosiery as well, checking every bit of light blue cloth on the field. Can't find the sock. Just before the game is due to start George complains to Gerry Taylor, the trainer, that his foot feels swollen and his shoe is tight. Gerry says, "Let me take a look at it." He does and tells George there's nothing to worry about and then comes running over to me looking like his gut is going to split. "I solved the mystery of the missing sock!", he says. "The silly bugger's got both socks on the same foot!" I said, "You're kidding!" Gerry says, "No, no I'm not!" I says, "You haven't told anybody else have you?" Gerry says, "Oh no, no, no!" I says, "Good, cause if this information was to get into the wrong hands there's no telling what damage could be done to George's and the Club's reputation." Gerry then says, "Oh yeah, yeah, right! Mums the word Doug, mums the word!"

Onto the game. We get a few young guys from Eugene after just finishing a game with Portland. Justin played a pretty good game at break, James got stuck in on the wing and Dustin, a bald center, tells Chuck his forte is crashing. Ookay. The game itself resembled a Japanese game show, violent. The sets were OK but the 35 year olds on the 3-line presented a bit of a problem. Speed with straight-arms. Dexter, a tall break, ran for lots of yardage and managed to straight-arm the Doc right in the cake-hole but I think Phil secretly liked it, sort of a badge of honor. He looked like Moe Syzlak from the "Simpsons" but then Doc is no oil painting at the best of times. Big Samoan fullback did some damage but Turk took him down Judo-style. Donnie Jenner boomed through a couple of tackles into the open but then ran out of ideas although he did score the only try after Murk performed the grunt work. I managed to get in Ron Ritchie's way as he was tracking down the elusive 35 year-old standoff in RED shorts and Jennifer knocked me right out of my shoes on another occasion when I was dawdling coming away from a loose. The Haka didn't work again. Final 4-1 Portland Old Boars.

Post Game Showered, changed, onto the bus and down to the Cheerful Tortoise, Portland's version of Rugby Hog Heaven, burgers, fries and the bottomless pitcher of beer. You guys that didn't go, I've said it before but it bears repeating, you snooze, you lose, on the booze. We all hoisted one to Murk, Portland's man of the Match and carried on. Ronnie Ritchie dove into...the shallow end...of the pool...table and then gave us a few Hendrix riffs on the air guitar with the pool...cue. The crew decides to head back towards the hotel but gets waylaid at the Candlelight Club for a nightcap. Coming out of the club you can see the hotel but in between there's a lot of 1-way streets zigging and zagging with anti pedestrian fences on the curbs; though not impossible to navigate if you follow directions. Our resident psychologist, Dr. Chuck, however, decides to show the rest of us lab rats how to get out of the maze and climbs the fences and cuts straight across all the traffic and so to bed. Most everybody gets some breakfast at the hotel in the morning except for Barton so after we get some more beer for the return trip we have to stop in Kalama for sandwiches, Malcom's not having surfaced yet from the Kelowna trip. John Barton also goes into Lounge Lizard mode, starting all these show tunes and not finishing them and letting the key get away from him. Doc's so lucky, I saw him sneak his hand up and shut off his hearing aids. Zork material methinks. Gerry was really good this trip, no aromatherapy but we did have the lovely fragrance of the holding tank to make up for it. Ian Trevor's beer was in the overhead and he couldn't get at it until tall Steve Bal went and got it down for him. Good touring squad.

Reverse Draw & Ebb Tide

Many thanks to all the people who helped make the evening a success. Ken Matsuo for the flower prizes, Bob and Stephanie for the table settings, Steve Wiles for the use of the PA, Brady Turkington for the bartendering, the Cooking Crew including Foggie's mom, Audrey for roasting the beef and also Garry and Tina Henry for the music. Tina's the editor who's taken exception to my views on the relative sexiness of Johnny Depp. (Please see last issue) Oh well, De gustibus non disputandum est. Wally Lorz made some money on the Calcutta orchestrated by young Simon Smolden. (Simon says: Bid more!) Lynda Turner's luck staid cold this year. No joy. Dave and Carol Laberge split the $1500 with Peter McBride (One of George Cook's tickets) and someone from the Mountain Shadow ( Ken Turner's motherlode of ticket purchasers) Once again, many, many thanks to all our friends who bought tickets to help support Twilighter Charities (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) and to all that attended we hope you had fun. After the smoke cleared, we made about $2500. Oh yeah, thanks to all for pitching in on the clean-up.

Twits vs Ebb Tide: Feb 29 Oh, oh, day after Reverse Draw. What squad is going to show up? Doesn't look good after the Tide waltz the first one in. Twits look like they're stuck in a bowl of aspic, nobody moved. Then the game picked up. Twits started to get good support to the second phase and this has gotta be a first, we win our own line-out ball and mess up most of Victoria's! Gordie did the Mazda thing, you know, Zoom, Zoom. He got 2. Pee Wee got 1. Rookie prop, Tim Tukutau notches his first. So for the first time in a long time the Twits drop Ebb Tide 4-2 with Bruce MacFarlane (Ancient Mariner) scoring one late in the game. Scene Referee, Mr. Trevor yelling into a pile-up for that older Ebbster to stop lying on the ball. He no capiche. Turns out he's deaf. Dave Laberge turned out for the game and made a large impression on a lot of the Victoria ball-carriers. Great weather and a great game of rugby. Before I forget, Doc saved another try by getting his big mitt under a Victoria ball in our end zone. This is becoming a habit. He did the same thing up in Kelowna last year if memory serves.

Post Game Frivolities We gave'em leftovers...from the banquet the night before. Honorable Mentions-Twits. Murk, Kevin Valancius, Mal, Nick, Scott Barney and Bruce Grist and I think the 2 new props, "Truck" and Tim should get the nod too but then I'm biased in favor of the front row union. Pres. Bob's Shooting Star, Gord "Mazda" Sanderson. Bob's Honorable Mention for the Redmen was Dave Valentine and Noah Moiah with 60+ Bruce MacFarlane being tapped for the Shooting Star.

On the Other Hand George got it right this day when he selected Nick Oliver for the "Georgie". Mr. Oliver was observed 1. taking a quick penalty himself from the opponents 30 meter line 2. hoisting a "dirty gerty" into the sun to the Ebb Tide's petit, red-shorted (60+) winger at the goal line 3. and then going down and trying to flatten him! tch, tch, Nick, tch, tch. Funny how this works, Shooting Star, Bruce MacFarlane got the other Georgie for dropping the ball when switching it from one hand to the other, while he was at full chat, way out in the open. Ebb Tide's Man of the Match was, (wait a minute, is this a typo?) Don Jenner. Just kidding Don, it was well deserved. Tide's own M of M was Russ Lazaruk. Then some more beer was drunk.

And Finally...

NICK'S CORNER Golfers be aware... 28 March is a bye week so an outing is planned for Burnaby Mtn. Tee time: 1:00 pm See Nick if interested.

April 18 is an away game in Nanaimo and Nick would like to know if anyone is interested in going over on the Friday or Saturday for a round of golf on one of their local courses and making a weekend of it. See Nick.

Bags, track suits, golf shirts, denim shirts are available and market research is being done into bringing other items out to the product line such as kids rugby gear, club ties and club branded umbrellas. If you have an idea for a club item that you think others would covet, come out and talk to Nick or George on Wednesday night or phone Nick at 604.522.0018.

FOR SALE Olie (Barney, that is) has the game sox, jerseys and shorts (I'm told) as well as a limited number of club blazer crests.

SAD NOTE A great friend of Rugby, David "Goose" Frid passed away recently after a long battle with the Big C. A very good player (BC Reps), he was a pillar of the Meralomas club and the Legends Over 40 club and indeed a tireless worker for the entire Rugby Community. Our prayers go out to his family and friends. Goose will be sorely missed. I can just about smell the fragrance from that stogie, can't you?.

LIGHTER NOTES President's Night is coming up (info later) Start thinking about who deserves what. I don't see any body on the Lady Byng horizon. Zork, Zero who're you goin' to slag?

Maritime Tour If you're going get some moolah to Bob Panton, Ian Gray or Paul Dunning ASAP!

PNW Tournament We need some circus roustabouts wannabes to get that tent up at the end of April. Ian Gray promised some funny stories about the Darwin Awards but I haven't seen them yet.

Don't let your meatloaf… Snoopp Dougg