I’ve been looking a little longingly lately at accounts in Newsday of playoff games, in baseball, boys and girls lacrosse, and softball, wondering if the day will come when East Hampton teams will be in them again. Baseball used to be, boys lacrosse used to be, girls lacrosse too, and softball, of course, used to be.
I was counting the teams here the other day that have been less than lustrous lately, if not in decline. The list is fairly long, beginning with the above-mentioned and including football, wrestling, girls soccer, girls basketball . . . not to mention rugby, a sport that isn’t under the high school’s aegis, but one that I like to write about.
Only swimming and boys soccer seem to be on a firm footing, given their strong feeder programs, and, to some extent, tennis and golf, and perhaps cross-country.
That’s not so bad when you think of it, for one can run, swim, and play tennis and golf for pretty much all of one’s life. (And write about them for pretty much all of one’s life too if you’re a sportswriter like me.)
I do think there will be, given the efforts evidenced by coaches of late, a renaissance of sorts in a number of sports here. I think it will happen. I just hope I’ll live long enough to see it, and, if I do, that I’ll be alert enough to appreciate what I’m seeing. Mary thinks I will live long and remain compos because I exercise and sleep like a baby, giving my cerebrospinal fluid plenty of time to wash away from my brain toxins such as beta amyloid, the sticky stuff associated with Alzheimer’s.
Though not as inimical, plenty of sticky stuff has been dropping from our oak trees of late — oak semen, I call it — and coating our cars in splotches. Unlike the washing that goes on in my brain at night, this sticky stuff requires that I not just lie there, but do something about it. It’s getting to be very hard to see out the rear window. I’ll get to it, I will, in the fullness of time.
But maybe I should sleep on it. Wash those toxins away, fire up the synapses! Make ready for brainstorms! It’s all the more important that I sleep these days, I tell Mary, when there’s nothing much to write about. In sum, it’s the healthiest and most creative thing I can do.