Chain Link From Long Fence Road

Football announcers, in general, are not pioneers of the English language. Once one of them uncovers a new phrase, the rest of them adopt it as their rallying cry and start spewing it weekly. Last year, it was “guts of a burglar” which held their attention for the entire season. This year it seems to be “off the snide,” which roughly translates to “halt their losing ways.” As it turns out, the word is actually “schneid,” even though most internet newspapers and sports sites are blissfully unaware of it. It apparently is derivative from the term Schneider – to cast a shutout in gin rummy. Apparently it comes from the 1930s, and that is unfortunate, because I bet it is some poor schlep that couldn’t win’s name. His buddies used to say, “ohhh, snap, you got Schneidered dog!” and eventually it gained entrance into the dictionary. Now Schneider is synonymous with consistent losing.

Which reminds me, I love rummy. I think I like regular rummy more than gin rummy (which features more thinking), but rummy is an underrated game in general. I had a study hall my junior year where those of us from the Cross Country and Soccer teams who were in it would play rummy the whole time while eating buttered bagels. I believe Seamus and I were the only juniors, the rest were Tim and his boyz, including “Tome Upside Your Dome.” “I’m gonna kill you Furst, I’m gonna kill you.” And he never did, just as I suspected.

Which remind me also of buttered bagels in study hall. These days I am opposed to adversely impacting others via inconvenience, but somewhere along the line, Mike “Booga” St and I decided that it was funny to take plastic knives, mangle them somehow, and then put them back into the knife tray. We wanted to evoke the response “wait a second, how did this obtain two handles?” or “is that chocolate syrup and strawberry jello?” It was pretty key.

Which then reminds me of my high school diet surrounding races. On meet days, I’d always eat oatmeal, and if available, jello. I’d even eat jello a few hours before the meet – quick, potent energy. As I was successful in most of my high school endeavours (I lost a grand total of 6 track races my Senior year, at nationals, indoor states, indoor mile at sectional to Iaturo, lead off of a 4×400 (one of the several that I led off) at Seton Hall and to Romanuik at the Armory), one of the coaches asked my father what they fed me. Yogurt and jello, he answered.

I am then reminded of Seton Hall. How would things have been different if I had gone there instead of Bucknell? My former coach from middle school was in charge of their Cross Country program at the time, and they were the only school to offer me an athletic scholarship (unless you count Monmouth, which I don’t). Then, my freshman year they won Penn Relays in the 4×800, with one cheesy bum white guy freshman and three studs. I would have been that cheesy bum white guy freshman if I went there, I am certain of it. On one hand, I could have had a Penn Relays title, on the other hand I would have presided over the downfall of a once proud program thereafter. Not only that, but academically the school kind of sucks, unless you want to be a lawyer. Had I gone to Seton Hall, I would have studied criminal law. Such bifurcation points amaze me sometimes – how there are two vastly different options which collide at one point in space and time. What we decide at that bifurcation point (if we have the option to decide at all) impacts every aspect of our lives. It’s unbelievable – I would have known none of that which I now know if I went there. What would I know instead? The mind, it boggles.

Speaking of Boggle, that was our childhood snow day game of choice. I don’t even like Boggle all that much, but every snow day, around say 11 AM, the three school district beneficiaries in my home, my brother, father and I, would bust out Boggle in the upstairs living room and play until we got bored. Then, one summer, my mother donated it to someone’s garage sale. We always accused her of stealing stuff, but this time she actually did. It’s a tremendously funny topic for my brother and I, but a senstive one for her, I think. Which makes it even more funny. After she fessed up, whenever something was missing we would claim that she sold it in a garage sale instead of merely threw it out.

Like the map I made for my community service hours in high school. The orienteering map of the woods behind the high school was atrocious. I spent several hours making a new one, a much better one. Then I lost it. Or, more accurately, my mother, on one of her malicious late night sorties through the house, threw it out or sold it in a garage sale. I was so annoyed, I decided not to redo it. Instead I told Mrs Masten, an elderly lady who was on my paper route several years previously, that I would do her yardwork for free for 10 hours. She was only paying me $4.85 an hour anyway, it was a largely symbolic payment.

The point of all of this? Mrs Masten grew up on a farm, but she thought a pitch fork was a spade and a spade was a shovel. We got into a disagreement about it one day. I let her win because she was an elderly woman, a sweetheart of a lady, and she lived her whole life thinking that a pitch fork was called a spade. Just to make sure, I looked it up when I got home. Sure enough, there was a picture of a spade next to the definition. It looked roughly like a spade in a standard deck of cards – the sort one might use to play gin rummy.

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