Goal Disoriented

Setting up for Saturday's earliest AYSO games there was much confusion. Where were the goals? Which goals needed to go where? There was some tension, some intense hustling, noble teamwork before things fell into place, before other parents showed up with their kids and set up their lawn chairs.

I'm standing in front of a goal near another mom and her daughter. The girl tells her mom:

I can fit my head through there.
(She is talking about the netting of the goal)
well, don't.
why mom?
because I don't want a medical emergency.
don't you have scissors? I do.

This is not what that mother came here for.

Later a group of players, a bunch of hispanic men who came to the field probably around 6 am, gather under an oak tree at the side of the field. Their soccer ball sits in tree branches at least 20 feet over their heads. They take turns trying to knock the ball out of the tree with other balls. Finally the ball falls, along with bits of the tree, which I pick up later so no little ankles get sprained.

That wasn't what they came here for. But it was really fun.

I see another unexpected tree retrieval incident later at the Fulton Ferry playground. Some balloons get caught in a tree, the kind you blow up and let fly around making their ridiculous noise. A dad knocks one down by throwing his water bottle into the air, he gets it down on the 4th try, smiling. It doesn't work out very often, mostly they're overlooked, but every once in a while trees make provocative and gratifying playmates.