May 2005 Goose Droppings

Reverse Draw April 2. BAM! The cooking crew kicked it up a notch! Oysters and clams in serried ranks assembled. (Courtesy of one of Dave Milne’s boys) It was a good thing to see Ian and Janet Mason out as well as Morag Duncan. (No Hughie though, good or bad? You make the call). The crowd was not as large as we would have liked but it looks like we grossed about $4600 bucks. No word yet on the net take. (Late Breaking News! Net take was $2204 vs. last years $3835) Winners? One Ken Matsuda (one of Ken Turner’s nom de plumes) and our Chuck Jung were the last 2 standing. They’re going to split $1500 and you would think that that would make it $750 each, right? But Chuck settled for $500! I’m confused as to how that works.

Images With the new Pope being installed and all and people seeing images of the Virgin Mary and various saints in media as diverse as grilled cheese sandwiches and cement stains on underpass walls. I don’t know about you but when the smoke came out of the Vatican chimney I thought I detected an image of a grilled cheese sandwich in the smoke. Do you think that’s possible? And what does it mean?

East Side Gentlemen April 10. Twits 5 – East Side 2. It was a hard well-fought match at Trout Lake refereed by our old friend, Frank Monahan…you heard me. I know getting and keeping referees has turned into a really tough job for the various unions but don’t you think this is pushing the envelope? Actually, Frank did a not too bad a job…for him. The Gents are putting a pretty good team together…lots of big fast guys.

Bobby Panton opened the scoring with some good support on Pee Wee who scored the 2nd try. Gomez notched 2 in fairly close succession but then got squashed in a tackle. He came off mumbling, “I must be dizzy if I said George (Cook) looks good.” The last try was touched down by a prop…for the first time in 25 years a Twilighter prop scored…Mark “Truck” Grigg, take a bow. De-Briefing took place at the Scribes clubhouse on Commercial. A lovely carbonara sauce with Italian sausage over penne literally danced on your tongue. Grigg was stiiill grinning.

Nanaimo Yoos to Bees April 17. Tries for Twits went to Harvey Johnston, Pee Wee with 2 and Bob Panton rounded out the scoring. Final 4 – 2. Malcolm and Andy spent some time in the sin bin for pestering each other…with their fists. The normally placid, Garry Henry, was penalized for Swearing(!) by the also normally placid, Mike Suddaby. Better stick to the de-caf guys, maybe a little bit more pink paint, some white noise? And what about the doorknob trying to put a throw-in to the front of the line-out. A slo-pitch softball player could have done a better job. Not straight, not five, you name it there was something wrong with it. Poor Kevin sprained his fat trying to make a play of it. Murk, in a spirit of generosity, tried to get a pass to one of his support staff got it to one of the opposition instead who went all the way for a try. Kickoffs got progressively worse, finally not even going across the center line.

Post GameNanaimo selected Roger for their Man-of-the-Match. Someone with an eclectic sense of discrimination, no doubt.

Kelowna Road Trip

Kelowna Vicars 24 April Off to Kelowna on the bus went Doc, George, Jari, Ollie, Bob, Ron, me, Turk, the 2 Garrys, Chiang and Henry, Rob, with the broken fingers, Barton, Baron, Frodo, Gerry Taylor, Bill Grist, Tyler, Gomez, Harvey, Nick, Malcolm and whoever the hell was in the can. Nick had just returned from a 2 test tour to Prague with his old club (for which he was “capped”) and related a merry story of one of his fellow tourists who defecated on the Charles Bridge, a world heritage site (must have been one of those soccer hooligans in a previous life). Nick also allowed as how he had been fleeced by a roving band of female pickpockets. He did not admit to doing a face-plant in his beer at the “afters” but I think we can take it as a given that he did.

Back to the bus trip. We got into Merritt for brekkies and on the way out of town we coast to a stop at the side of the road. Driver says the brakes are coming on. Jari and Ollie, the closest we’ve got to heavy duty mechanics, go out to help him investigate. Broken air line to the rear brakes and no can fix. Somebody phones Charter Bus Lines to see what happens next when a Shriner’s bus pulls in behind us. No overweight, overrich gentlemen with fezzes and tiny little motorbikes or strange Arabic looking band members, this bus is on a mission of mercy hauling some sick kids and families to Portland but after some discussions their offer to take us to Kelowna first is accepted. Marvelous! So support Shriner Charities wherever you can!

Onto the game. Quite warm for April. Beautiful day. With me as the only scheduled prop Coach George kindly volunteered so we sued for no-contest sets and after the pre-game ritual of some gawd-awful port to swig we got going. Vicars have a new big second row to shove with Kaspar and lots of X-Burnabians such as Dano at No. 8, Garth Ink who might just be over 40 and Bucky whom somebody kicked. He says it was one of our guys but I don’t know, I think it might just as easily been one of his own guys. He has that effect on people. Willy had been sent on a wild-goose chase (real estate deal or something) and showed up at the post game de-brief.

Scoring, I think Murk got loose for one and also Harvey (if I’ve got that wrong someone will no doubt correct me). I think it was 3-2 for the Vicars late when the 35 year old Maori scored an empty netter, chipping over and racing in to touch down. Earlier he was involved in a maul and somebody said, “Get his fingers off the ball”, somebody else said, “ The brown ones.” He giggled.

I went into a ruck and that young prop was on his back and put his foot into my groin so I stroked his thigh…with my cleats. I also had to caution him later in another maul about meddling with the ball on our side of the maul. He took the criticism with good grace. Great burger feast later and a great Burnaby schmooze fest, Dano and Garth and Murk and Bucky and Willy and Nick (not Oliver), hugging and crying and male-bonding…it was awful.

On the trip back, a Red Letter Day, Coach Cook could not finish a scotch.

Seattle Road Trip

Seattle NOBs May 1. We’re not doing so well at the end of our bus trips, maybe making us a little too soft. Case in point; Kelowna then this weekend Seattle. Final NOBs 5 – Twits 3. Seattle scored the first 2, then the Blu Cru fought back and went ahead 3-2 (Murk, Garry Henry and Garry Chiang) but alas could not hold on. One of the reasons being the NOBs stand-off, Tongan, ex-US National team Eagle, one of Mumoi’s relatives. (Isn’t every Tongan in the Pacific Northwest a cousin?) His check step had everyone grabbing air. Twits got some quality help from Paul Campbell, Bob, Duncan, Dan and Dave.

The park was found at the end of a long and winding road under the flight path of Runway 34 Left Sea-Tac Airport. Boy, it was noisy. In fact that’s why we lost the game…the racket from the departing jets screwed up our intricate lineout signals… wink, wink, nudge, nudge, say no more, say no more. Also Murk threw away a perfectly good opportunity when a guy goes to ground over a line, not the goal line and tells him, “Oh, oh that’s not the goal line, that’s not the goal line!”. When he should have said, “ Oh darn, another tr…”, reached down pulled the ball out and started walking to center as if to kick off and then taken off like one of those jets. Oh well.

“Afters” No showers so we bussed it back to an Authentic Western Honky-Tonk Road House just around the corner for some cheap beer and pizza and the obligatory cultural exchange before we headed for home to lick our wounds.

PNW Tourney

Another successful Tournament, Ladies and Gentlemen. The weather staid pretty good for the whole weekend, just right for rugby. Started on Thursday with the tents going up with the help of John Adams’ navvies. Many thanks, gentlemen and to all the ladies and gentlemen and boys and girls who helped out working at the cook tent, the concession stand and the ale dispensary our heart-felt thanks go out to you all. We couldn’t have done it without you. In addition to John, thanks must go to the Ians, Trevor and Gray, Bob Panton, Jamie London, Nick Oliver, Garry Henry, Leigh Shelley, Mike Suddaby, Ken Turner, George Cook and Brian Hayes. If I’ve missed anyone, my apologies but you know who you are and what you did to make this version of the Tournament the success it was. John Adams also wants me to mention that if any of you volunteers did not get a Tee shirt/ sweat shirt please get in touch with him.

Friday a couple or three games went off with the Pacific Northwest Over 60 Masters squad showing off their talents and spiffy new unies to a motley crew of 60’s and late model 50’s. Scores were not kept to protect the innocent. It was good to see Don Gardner out from Edmonchuk and Sam from Phoenix was up as well. Sam’s been told he reminds people of Henry “The Fonz” Winkler about 9 million times, several times by me.

Saturday, I was missing (waving the flag at a Mother’s Day do) and did not get there til about 1…just in time for the Ebbtide game. Ugh, I could’ve missed that. Even with Bob Laustrup and Dave Laberge in the lineup, we had our asses handed to us on a plate. That Robert Okeeffe, Chuck Jung’s friend form Calgary, has got a set of wheels. Too bad we couldn’t get him matched up against the Pee Wee. Things got a little testy later on and the Redmen ran in another one. I don’t know if they were thumbing their noses at us, but they put Noah (Nobody Loah) in at second row! Oh well, it’s only a game and it appears that the class of the Tournament was Victoria, Kelowna and Seattle. Methinks while Garry Henry’s idea of forming a Barbarians side to flesh out the competition was very well intentioned and hospitable, it left the Twits in a precarious position, manpowerwise. While wandering through the bazaar after the games were over it was good to see Portland up and unfortunate that Valley and Nanaimo were unable to attend. What about that knot on the head Kaspar, the Vicar 2nd row had collected? It looked they were starting on the sequel to “Hellboy” and working out the makeup.

Post Games Frivolities Must thank Garry Henry for collecting all those marvelous Oscars, Emmies, Grammies, Tonies, Darties and Bowlies for awarding to the “winners” of the Rugby Idol singing contest. They were far nicer than most of the performers deserved, I thought. What a job Duncan did to recover from leaving it all on the pitch to give that performance of “Down by the River”. Laura Grist did her thing with Big Spender, Ken Turner and everyone seemed to have a beery good time. A few aching bawds availed themselves of the massage therapists but I was unaware of any teams taking advantage of Front Row Photography’s offer of a free team photo, Oh well.

Sunday The over 60’s went at it again, albeit down to 14 a side. Good to see Mike Moye, formerly of the Vintage, out for the Masters. John Lucas shot out of a loose with the ball and headed straight for his goal line with all his teammates screaming “Whoa!” Everyone seemed to like my red silk harem pants. They fit better than my other red ones.

New Stuff

Twit’s Poker Night: June 1
$25 Buy in.
1 drink and chicken curry over rice

President’s Night: Friday June 17 More info later.

Burnaby Lake Rugby Club Golf Tournament: June 18 Support Minor Rugby. $100 at Golden Eagle. See Bill Meechan for more info.

Annual General Meeting: June 22 after practice.

So long for now, Snoop Dougg.