Monday June 15, 2009

As a Capricorn, I like statistics and the first statistic coming out of Sunday’s tournament is that 55.5% of the players engaged in this “concours” didn’t belong to our club.
Is it good? Is it bad? I don’t know, but I feel that more of our members should have entered this contest to defend the colors of our club. But that’s me…
Anyway, thank you Sonoma guys for showing up!

Second statistic: last Sunday, I walked 4296 steps (over 2 miles) during this event. Who ever said that pétanque was strictly for the gerontic set? I know kids in my neighborhood who could not walk 500 yards without calling an ambulance.

But, I am digressing… Let’s go back to the main event. Forty eight (48) people showed up for our steak picnic and thirty-six (36) entered the tournament.
Below are the names of those brave souls.

	Red		Blue		White
1	Dave Riffo	1	Sabine Mattei	1	Elisabeth Forree
2	J-Marc Bohin	2	Christian Philippon	2	Genevieve Etallaz
3	Alain Efron	3	J-Claude Etallaz	3	George Zolinsky
4	J-Christophe Loomis	4	Eva Lofaro	4	Claudie Chourre
5	Ed Porto	5	William Hansen	5	Joan Hansen
6	Frank Pipal	6	Verena Rytter	6	Chuck Barble
7	Jacques Gautier	7	Monique Martin	7	Laura Bohin
8	David Render	8	Christine Cragg	8	Dolly Ebolitto
9	Jean Bartkowiak	9	Jean Etcheverry	9	Danielle Hanssens
10	Jacques Sarafian	10	J-Claude Bunand	10	Catherine Philippon
11	Tino Lofaro	11	Helga Facchini	11	Francois Moser
12	Tom Bricca	12	Andre Sanchou	12	Tamara Efron

Before I tell you what happened, I want to give you the names of our “hero-workers”, the people behind the scene who were up at dawn to set up the barbecue area.

When I arrived to the field Sunday around 9:00 am, I found my first heroes and unsurprisingly to me, they were all women. Verena Rytter, Claudie Chourre´ and Christine Cragg like worker ants were already carrying heavy loads to the barbecue pit. I will have to dig in my coffers to buy chocolate medals for these gallant ladies! Three cheers for you senoritas!

And Saturday, who groomed the field? Ken Lee and Christine. That’s who! And I was also told that Emily Etcheverry (all by herself) put in long hours last week to clean the field. Don’t be shy Emily… Toot your own horn once in a while! Another cheer for Emily!

The barbecuing of the steaks (a manly job, I wonder why…) was performed by Jean-Marc Bohin who was ably assisted by Alain Marchand and David Render. Another lusty cheer for those guys!

Claudie Chourre´ (who cooked the peas), Emily and Tamara dished out peas, cheese and salad with a smile. Merci mesdames!

Who am I forgetting? Nobody I hope, because like Napoleon I like to recognize the braves who did their duty on the battlefield. And like the “little corporal” I want to say: “Soldats, je suis content de vous! »

The tournament proper started after lunch, around 2:00 p.m.
We should have started earlier, but the “bread purveyors” Jean-Claude and Catherine Bunand were late delivering their goods and the French section of the crowd objected eating meat without bread. “It just is not done!” So lunch was postponed until the bread arrived. Boo on Jean-Claude for holding up the parade.

The format of the tournament was “triplettes panaché”. Teams of 3, changing partners each game. We played 4 games and the winners of each game received 2 raffle tickets while the losers got only one.

Everything went smoothly except one last game which seemed to drag forever. There ought to be a “sudden death” clause in pétanque…

After the last game ended, a raffle was held and 12 bottles of wine were awarded to 12 different people (winners and losers alike).

I was pleased to see Louis Toulon and his wife Jan at the court. He has been out of sight for a while, but he is definitely not out of mind. Louis, when are you coming back to the field to show all the punk kids like Sarafian, Bartkowiak and Etcheverry how to play “la vraie pétanque”?

Before I forget, I would like to add, that at the end of the day, many people like Alain Marchand, Jacques Gautier, Jean-Marc Bohin, Ken Lee, François Moser helped to clean up and store the barbecue material. That’s the club spirit. Thank you guys but don’t overdo it because I will run out of medals.

Our next tournament is Sunday, July 19. Hope to see you all there!

Alain Efron

 

 

PS: Additional pictures of this event can be seen by clicking on the "Web Album II" link below