So what happened yesterday? Who was there? How was the food? Who won?
Before I satisfy your curiosity, let me recognize the often-unsung heroes of this event, the people who toil “in the shadow” to bring a tournament to its successful completion.
The “ordinary heroes” of this affair were:
Claudie Chourré and Verena Rytter who did the food shopping, Jean-Claude Etallaz and Patrick Vaslet (also Claudie), who prepared, barbecued and served the lamb, Tamara Semionovna who spilled cooked the beans, and Verena Rytter and Bart Zachofsky who called the shots and ran this tournament.
In Marin, we are blessed with a nice shady field, but coming September, dead leaves are blanketing the ground and have to be removed prior to a tournament.
You can thank Claudie Chourré (her again) and Charlie Davantes for doing the heavy lifting on Friday, and Patrick Vaslet, Jean-Claude Etallaz and Rene Di Maio for lending a hand on Sunday morning.
Christine Cragg our standard bearer has not been seen for a few days. The last I heard, she had to fly to Texas to be at the side of her ailing father. We are thinking of you Christine. Best wishes.
Back to the tournament.
The weather was fair and the crowd good-humored. I counted about 70 people and 3 dogs who opted not to play in this tournament.
The food (meat and beans) was well prepared, and contrarily to last year I heard no complaints. I surmise that this has something to do (no offense Jean-Claude and Patrick) with Tamara cooking the beans. Drunken with success she also threatened to cook “borscht” for the same event next year. Stay tuned.
The main event started after lunch. It consisted of three thirteen points (no time limit) games. This tournament was open to all and its purposely chosen format was “panaché” (switching partners for every game). I am well aware that this is not everybody’s cup of tea (I confess that it is not mine) but the goal of this encounter was to encourage novices to get their feet wet and get involved with pétanque. So it is everybody’s obligation be tolerant and forgiving.
Since no scores were kept, there were no clear winners and no prizes, but everybody was a winner just for participating in this low-pressure event.
Thank you all for coming, and a special “merci” to all the people who volunteered to help.
Alain
PS: To look at pictures of recent events turn the sound on, and click on “My photos” located on the right side of the page.