Hear you Mac read this article!
225 years ago, on the 14th of July 1789, the Parisians stormed the Bastille and freed 7 inmates (4 forgers, 2 lunatics, and one deviant).
Yesterday, I marched into the Sonoma Pétanque field to partake in the commemoration of this event and schmooze with the local deviants and lunatics.
I also came to munch on some food and hear Le Facteur incite the crowd to mayhem through his fierce rendition of La Marseillaise.
Due Zighi Baci (Two Gypsy Kisses) provided the musical entertainment and Michael Van Why and Sheri Mignano gave us a very believable version of a French “bal-musette”.
Le Facteur took advantage of this and commandeered an innocent woman to gyrate with him on the dance floor. Women beware of smooth-talking letter carriers!
I also showed up to play a little pétanque.
When I arrived, around 9:30 a.m. the weather was fair, but in the afternoon the temperature increased significantly and the oppressive heat made it unpleasant for everybody to play.
The contestants were as follows:
- Holly Sammons, Bleys Rose, Steve Van Vleck
- Shannon Bowman, Joan Robertson, Ken Goddard
- Erin McTaggart, Dave Katz, John Giil
- Brendan Cohen, Cliff Knuckles, Lee Hastings
- Peter Mathis, Chris Wood, Minette Etallaz
- Patrick Vaslet, Marcy Mallette, Dick Nyquist
- Bernard Passmar, Blaise Weist, Rita Gordon
- Steve Jones, Jean-Michel “Le Facteur” Poulnot, David Nickelson
- Alain Efron, Schon Schurecht, Dede Goddard
- Adair Hastings, Jean-Claude Bunand, Julie Giil
- Delio Cuneo, Peggy Silversides, Bandon Yukich
- Carlos Couto, Nina Swusdipani, Lynda Evans
The format of the tournament was “à la mêlée” and this time the capricious Gods of Pétanque were kind to me. They assigned two charming and talented ladies (Schön and Dede) to me and it became quickly evident that we were bound for glory.
Two 13 points games were scheduled before lunch. They would determine who would play in the Concours and who would play in the Consolante.
Our team did very well. We won both games with a score of 13/8 each time and qualified for the Concours.
Then we were summoned to lunch.
As a member of La Pétanque Marinière, I am partial to our club, but I must admit that in the culinary domain we have been regularly outclassed by the VOMPC.
Yesterday, under the patronage of Shannon Bowman (president of the VOMPC) Christine Piccin and her gang did an absolutely bang-up job.
According to its website, the VOMPC took 100 reservations for their picnic. That’s a lot of people and a lot of food to prepare, but Christine’s brigade came through with flying colors.
I don’t think that anybody could find fault with anything. Every dish was a success.
The lamb was particularly tasty. It was so good that the local wasps quickly spread the word and crashed our party by the dozens.
Congratulations to Christine Piccin and her gang for an outstanding job!
By comparison, our club (La Pétanque Marinière) is an old-fashion, fuddy-duddy club stuck in the past and marinating in a stale broth.
It needs to change (especially in the culinary field) to remain relevant.
But back to pétanque.
After lunch the tournament continued.
To expedite the tourney, nine (9) points elimination games were scheduled. Personally, I don’t care for such games. It doesn’t give you a chance to recoup from a few disastrous hands and that’s what happened to us.
On our 3rd game we were eliminated from the tournament by Steven Jones, Le Facteur and David Nickelson.
I know that we could have done better, but such are the vagaries of the game.
At 4:30 p.m. in view of the heat (and being particularly anxious to watch a rebroadcasting of the FIFA World Cup finals), we opted to leave the field and head home.
The final results of the tournament communicated to me by Shannon Bowman:
Concours:
Semi-finals:
Sammons/Rose/Van Vleck vs Jones/Le Facteur/Nickelson
Sammons’ team prevailing
Finals:
Mathis/Wood/Minette vs Sammons/Rose/Van Vleck
Mathis’ team winner of the Bastille Day Concours (13/11)
Alain
PS: To look at pictures of this event and listen to accompanying background music, turn the sound on, and click on the link “My Photos” located on the right side of this page.
Surely there were more than 12 Triplettes playing…