All Stitched Up

First off, pronunciation is “Gambia” sounding more like a country in Africa then Pistons bad boy Bill Lambier. After getting settled Tuesday it was right off to the grounds to set up some more fencing. We had to fence off about 500 meters to be able to charge admission at a gate. This time it was a lot smoother, no rain and an easier portable setup (although we did more than 2/3 of it wrong and had to readjust them) we were done in less than four hours. It was also again a good way to ingratiate myself to the locals right off. I was invited to the home of Ian Ewart for wine and lunch Saturday afternoon and to meet the coaching staff of the South Australian team…that story to come. That night I went to the league meeting and got to know everyone involved, we finished with a Christmas drink which ended up being 4 and I felt very welcomed in my newest Australian hometown. Wednesday I woke up to 2 messages one to schedule a tv interview for the local news and the other for the local paper (great headline, I wasn’t really sure if that was backhanded but I was assured it wasn’t). So word got out quick that there was a yank in town. That afternoon, I was able to sneak off and play 18 holes at Attamurra Golf Club which ended up costing $15 and the course was in pretty good condition although rather difficult with narrow fairways and pine trees lining each hole…and no carts is no fun, a bit hilly at Attamurra and us Yanks aren’t used to walking, probably contributed to my double-double finish on 17 and 18. I played well though finishing with an 88, much better than the last 5 times I played at home. The real story comes from the 15th tee where I almost had a heart attack when I saw the kangaroo pictured above was about 10 meters away and then realized there were 2 adults and a joey. I overcame my flight instinct and grabbed my camera and snapped that pic of him staring me down…so that was my first Roo experience.

The next day we took care of some more supplies at the grounds, I ended up leaving to setup my bank account and get a haircut, when I came back Amanda (my Mount Gambier host mom) was excited because she had earned the promotion she was seeking within the local Catholic school. We went to the local pub to celebrate with dinner and drinks, at about 10pm Greg and Amanda were ready to leave but live music had just started and people were starting to show up Their house was like 5 blocks away so I stayed behind. I first had a shout with a couple of traveling businessmen from Adelaide who told me how much I will love Glenelg. I ended up meeting jess and jess (conveniently enough) bought them a drink (down here you don’t tip for anything bartenders/waiters make good wages and I think it’s kind of an insult, so a beer actually costs what it costs…novel). I was telling them about my Roo story, and they tried to play a classic aussie trick that they use on Americans telling me to watch out for drop bears falling out of trees while you’re driving, they could have had me going for a while but I didn’t really get why they thought it was so funny, why wouldn’t I believe you if you told me about some random dangerous/nuscent animal? that’s all I’ve heard about so far. Anyway, I recruited them to come to one of the games and they showed up Sunday (it’s tough to ask someone to spend $10 to watch a sports they could care less about.

There was a big cricket test match this week (goes 5 days, ended Sunday), and I’ve pretty much got the idea…and it is without a doubt the stupidest game ever. It is basically the same idea of baseball except there are 2 innings’s (they insist on pluralizing innings as in the top of the 5th innings), everyone bats each innings, you bat until you get out, you have 360 degrees to work with, and here’s the kicker if you hit a grounder you don’t have to run if you don’t think you can make it. So it’s basically sitting around all day watching some blokes drop drag bunts down and then decide if he wants to run or not and if it drags on too long ( I watched about an hour and a half the other night and saw 2 outs) and they don’t get the required 20 outs to finish the two innings it’s a draw…5 days and then kiss your sister…mind boggling that anyone would watch. There are some shorter versions with more action because you have incentive to swing the bat rather than foul them off because you only get a limited number of pitches, but the cricket purists hate it.

So, Friday night the game went well we had two funny 20 something guys in the mascot costumes whose only question to me was do we get to tackle each other (and if you saw a game in Elsinore the last two years, it’s about as creative as we’ve come up with yet) so they did a great rendition of the mascot race with Ronnie the Rhino spearing Redman the Lion. Once the game was started I did what any good AGM would do…started drinking by the time the game was finished I was ready to head to the Mount Gambier Hotel to see what Friday night was like. I had maybe 2 beers talked to a handful of people and then after I had been there about an hour they threw everybody out because too many fights were going on at or around the pub…so that was interesting. Now, there was one place that all the locals told me not to go to under any circumstances, it was ominously named Shadows and known for fights and bikers…how could I not go. At last call I ended up talking to this big guy who implored me to check Shadows out and that he’d have my back. Shadows is a big night club that stays open til 4 or 5 in the morning. I walked in asked the first two girls I saw if they wanted a drink , one of them gave me attitude so I bought her friend a drink instead…this wasn’t the best idea as the now infuriated biker chick started to threaten that she’d smash my face in, her boyfriend was more or less amused by the situation and I was pretty much ready to go home so I had one beer there (on the other side of the club) and ended up spending about 10 minutes and 20 bucks at Shadows in Mount Gambier…more importantly I got out alive.

The next morning I was picked up promptly at 11am by Ian Ewart and taken to his ranch outside of town. Mind you, from the time I was invited by him I had 10 people warn me about him and red wine, but I went in naively thinking I could keep up. We started at 11:30am with a couple beers and bbq-ed octopus and seared tuna cooked up by KD who doubles as the PA announcer. We switched to wine about 12:15 and didn’t switch off wine until about 5:30pm when it was time to head down to the grounds for the game. We head steaks right off the Barbie for lunch and I met the entire coaching staff of the SA team which included a Yank from Oregon. So I stumbled down to the grounds to the amusement of all the Aussies Ian Ewart had “stitched me up good”, he reckons we went through over $600 of wine. One of the things they thought was hilarious was listening to me say this girl Bianca’s name (I guess I do have a funny little habit about pronouncing vowels), I couldn’t even describe how they pronounce it because I don’t think my mouth/throat can even make those sounds. Coming back for the Sunday day game was a little tough but everyone just thought it was the funniest thing to see the hungover Yank come back for game 3. It seemed everyone in town had heard of my escapades, a few blokes told me “it’s hard to reach legendary status when you’re only here a week. “ I got a ride home from Karen, one of the mums that runs the canteen (concession stand) and she said she had to double back around the block after she dropped me off to make sure I didn’t sneak back out. One of the guys “Hutchy” takes a team to California every year last summer he went to Anaheim, Fresno and Petco so I told him he’d have to see The Diamond next June…so about those all-star game tickets. “Hoody” was another cool guy who set the record in their league with a .614 batting average a couple years ago. In talking to the baseball guys out here they are all so shocked that a 24 year old American doesn’t play organized baseball. I’ve been telling them their setup for adult sport is unbelievable. Sports are just such an important part of life that they make the commitment and play hardball well into their 50’s whereas adults in America might play beer league softball at most. Another one of the youth coaches shawn wanted to see my fastball (I guess I got to chirping after I was on the Piss Saturday night) so I warmed up and actually threw the ball pretty well for 15 or 20 throws and then I shut it down for fear of my arm falling off. Everyone in Mount Gambier has been too nice and accommodating. I’m looking forward to getting settled into Glenelg the next couple of days and then it’s being arranged that I’ll spend Christmas in Sydney which is going to be sick.