"Aye, There's the rub!"

It's been a very busy day Chez Adams. My daughter Rachel had to organize a myriad of equipment and got herself and her horse Maverick over to the Minnesota State Fair. We will be watching her compete on Saturday. For Rachel, going into her Junior year, this is the culmination of a lifelong wish and compete at the State Fair. Don't let the fact that she goes to an "arts school" fool you: She is competitive as hell, and since her school does not have any sports team, this is the closest she is going to get to the "State Tournament Experience" that only my brother Bill knows about.(He took 4th place in class AA Wrestling as senior at 185 pounds back in 1978... Well it only SEEMS that long ago)

It was a beautiful day in Minneapolis today. I did not even mind cutting the grass. It was a great day to be a Zebra(American slang for a referree-related to black and white striped shirts refs traditionally wore in basketball and American Football) I also reffed a girls JV soccer game in glorious sunny conditions that were not too hot. So far I have been lucky that I have not had to card anybody or deal with any really dickheaded coaches or parents. It's kind of cool to get PAID to run around and get my interval training in for the day.

    My Grandmother turns 91 tomorrow, and we are getting together at her house tomorrow to celebrate. At my age, I feel lucky to not only still have my mom and dad still vertical, but also to still be able to see my grandmother. A lady who had more than little hand in making me the person that I am-particularly the part that likes animals and travel.

Two years ago, I worked the opening week at "Lac Du Bois", the Concordia French Language Village at the Camp Holiday campus near Hackensack, Minnesota

I met a counselor, or a "Mono", as we call them at French Camp. Actually, Yawo, a Native of Togo, in West Africa,

 was more than a counselor, he also was to be a teacher for the 4 week credit students at that bucoloic site. I got to speaking with him and he and I hit it off immediatly. We had a lot in common: He and I both were soccer fans, had been married for over a couple of decades, had teenagers and college aged kids and a love of working with kids.

I have worked as a camp nurse for 7 summers with CLV. In that time I have worked with wonderful counselors, teachers, cooks and other people who make a summer camp experience fun for the kids and fulfilling for nurses like me. That group of counselors lead by the dean "Paix" was the camp version of the '27 Yankees in Baseball, the '85 Bears or the 1970 World Cup winning Brazilian side. This was absolutely the best team that I have ever been a part of in working with CLV. The week just flew by. I was really going to miss working with this formidable team. I was really going to miss my friend Yawo...it all hit me so hard that I actually spent my last evening crying in bed, because I was so overcome with emotion. I felt very proud to have been a part of such a wonderful team.

A few weeks later, Yawo was done with teaching at Lac Du Bois. On his way to go visit his brother in London, I had the pleasure of having Yawo over to my house for a couple of days. He hit it off in a big way with my wife Rebekah and My kids Ian and Rachel. He also just LOVED our Golden Retriever Rambeau. When I saw him off to the bus station in Minneapolis, I did not expect to hear from him untill the following year when He planned on coming back to work at Lac Du Bois. A few weeks later, I was to find out I was mistaken.

Yawo called me a few weeks later. I was to find out he was still in Minnesota. He told me how people in his native Togo wanted him dead, and had tracked him to Gabon, where he, his wife and kids had been living. Togo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Togo at that time was led by the Dictator Eyadema http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnassingb%C3%A9_Eyad%C3%A9ma  To make a long story short, my friend could not go back to Africa. He had to file for refugee status-a very arduous task. During the months he was waiting, he could not work, or risk being deported. My friend who was a proud, highly educated man became dependent on the generosity of a myriad of American Strangers who helped him find a place to live, find a church, meet other expat Togolese in the Twin Cities, get Medical and mental health care related to the horrible stress he was under -and most importantly, give him legal help to get his refugee status so that he could have his wife and kids come to be with him in the U.S.

Yawo certainly had some moments where he was down. He really missed his family. I made it a point of inviting him to Christmas, Thanksgiving and other family gatherings so that he would not be alone during the holiday. Yawo had many admirers in my family as well. That said, my friend's faith and goodness during the troublesome year and half would put the average person to shame. My problems were nothing compared to his. my problems were not anything that a little overtime would not solve. Yawo's travails were a reality check for me anytime I found myself feeling down over something trivial.

After a year and a half, his family was able to join him last fall. I still kick myself for not having a camera with me at the airport when his family came in, and the pure joy on face to see his family.

 Next month will mark one year that Yawo has been reunited with his family. He has a teaching job in a charter school and his kids are all doing well at their respective schools. His wife is going to school so she can work as well. Yawo's family is just another chapter of the American Immigrant Experience. I am proud to still call him and his family my friends.

For the previous 7 summers, I have worked as a camp nurse with the Concordia Language Villages in Minnesota. http://clvweb.cord.edu/prweb/

Because I am saving my vacation days for this eagerly anticipated trip to France next month, I did not do it this year.

My first year working for Concordia, I worked as a camp nurse at "Lac Du Bois", the French camp at the Camp Holiday site near Hackensack, Minnesota. I worked the last 4 weeks of the season in August. To say that it was an "education", would be a serious understatement: We had brutal heat and a plague of wasps that made my last 3 weeks more than stressful because we had an assistant dean and two of the campers with SERIOUS wasp allergies and carried Epinephrine pens with them as a precaution in case they were stung. It was hard work...but I really enjoyed the change from my corporate job with United HealthCare.

One of the joys in working as a camp nurse was working with the international staff. We had counselors, or "Les Monos" from a variety of countries, like France, Belgium, the US and African countries like Senegal and Cameroon that year. At that time I was pushing 40-almost old enough to be a parent for the counselors. I became particularly close to one of the counselors. His name was Abdou, and he was a member of the Wolof tribe from Dakar, Senegal.

Abdou and I made quite a pair of opposites: he was at least 6'6, very trim, VERY dark skin and was thoughtful and quiet. Me: 5'10 225-230 lbs, white(I prefer melanin challanged) and very chatty.

Abdou was about 32 at that time-older and more mature than the other counselors. I think since I was was a little closer in age helped-but there was more to it than that. Abdou reminded me of my maternal grandfather in that he did not really speak unless he really had something to say. I enjoyed listening to his insight and African perspective about living in the U.S and working with the kids at camp. A few of the things that really suprised him was that in spite of all of their creature comforts, American kids, to him, seemed very stressed. He was amazed at all of the material things that American parents lavished on their kids-but even more amazed at how little they recieved in terms of discipline and manners. Abdou was a gentle spirit who was great working with a homesick kid, but because of his size and dignified manner, was able to bring a kid down a peg when they were misbehaving.

My kids give me a hard time about my love of African music. They can blame Abdou for part of that. I was introduced to Senegalese musicians like Youssou N'Dour and Baba Maal.

For people who are scared of Muslims in this post 9/11 world, Abdou's gentleness and decency should make him a poster child about lables that we put on groups of people. I very much enjoyed working and talking with this dignified and thoughtful man. I feel like I am a better person having known him.

In 46 years, there are three people from Africa who have had a profound impact in my life. I would like to share my stories of my friendship with these people who came from so far to make a difference in my life.

I met "The South African Lady" back in 1981, when I was studying in Montpellier, France. May and her husband had immigrated from Cape Town, South Africa to live and raise a family there. I met May, Gerry, and their kids Michelle and Jean-Pierre through my British friend Jonathan, who lived very near to them.

Among the many things that struck me about this remarkable woman was her energy, her warmth, kindness and hospitality. I think May and my Aunt's friend Gay in Darwin are the two most gracious women I have ever met in my life. She was always glad to see you and she had scores of people of different nationalities who seemed to be at their house.

When you are away from home during Christmas time, it can be a very lonely, depressing experience. That December, the weather was very grey and rainy, my roomate Frank was gone with his girlfriend (now wife) Chris. My friends from the University like Jonathan, Jean-Paul, Bernard-hell, EVERYBODY was back home in different parts of France and Europe. Christmas of 1981 was looking like it was really going to suck-then I was invited by May and Gerry to go to Christmas eve Dinner with them and go to Mass. As if that was not enough, they invited me to come with them the following day as they went to different friend's houses for Christmas. They introduced me to their friends, and I got to meet some very nice people, eat some fabulous food and drink some unbelievable French Reds, as in wines. It went from looking like a really depressing holiday to having an unforgettable holiday- And they did it for a foriegn kid they hardly knew.

If you have ever met a South African, they have a very unique accent. They have an almost sing-songy accent. The best way that I could describe May's voice was that she chirped. It was melodic and clipped.

By her and her family going out of their way to be hospitable, it had a very profound impact on me, a boy from the Midwest. Because of their example, I vowed that whenever I became a homeowner, that I would try to welcome kids from overseas to my house and try to show them life in the Midwest-a part of the U.S.A that most people don't know about.

I am so much looking forward to seeing May and Gerry and their now grown-up kids. I can honestly say that even if I were to lose my rugby tickets, just to see them and introduce them to my kids, would make the trip all worthwhile to me.

May and Gerry are a big reason how I got involved hosting foriegn exchange students. We now have hosted 12 AFS kids...talk about how one person's gift so many years ago is still giving.

In my case, 1987 was a great year: I became a father for the first time when my son Ian was born at Wilford Hall Medical Center at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas. As a long suffering Minnesota Twins Baseball fan, my Twinkies finally won a "World Series", the championship of Major League Basball in North America.

One of my memories of when the Twins got the last out to beat the Saint Louis Cardinals in Game 7 was that my friend Mel and I were silently jumping up and down in his apartement at Randolph Air Force Base-because Baby Ian had JUST fallen asleep and we did not want to wake him with our celebration.

For fans of the New Zealand All Blacks-their national rugby team-1987 marked the first-and incredibly the ONLY time this rugby rich nation has ever won the Rugby World Cup. 

Hard to believe, I know. After 20 years of coming up short in Rugby World Cups, this All Black Team looks like the team to beat-but All Black fans have heard that before-particularly in the 1999 Rugby World Cup when the Kiwis got upset by the French in the Semi-finals.(In spite of an amazing try by Jonah Lomu, who must have run over and through about 8 French defenders to score his try)

At any rate, I know my Kiwi blogging friend Ferdy is hoping that after 20 years of bad mojo, the All Blacks will finally lift the Webb Ellis Trophy.

I have a very dear friend in the rugby blogosphere named Ferdy. She's a Kiwi lass who keeps a fantastic rugby-related blog:http://ruggerblogger.blogspot.com/

In the last couple of weeks, she has handicapped the top teams to play at the Rugby World Cup(Well, all but Argentina) It's a great feature and has sparked some spirited commentary. It got me to thinking. "What about the bottom feeders?" You know-those, special ed/Special Olympians slated to play in France. In keeping in the spirit of the Acadamy Awards, I have  5 nominees: Tonga,Portugal

Japan,

 the U.S.A and Namibia 

Japan, Namibia and Tonga have never won a World Cup Match. The only two U.S Rugby World Cup wins have been against Japan. Portugal is in it's very first Rugby World Cup.

Whoever wins the USA-Tonga match on September 12th(Which I will attend in Montpellier) will avoid the wooden spoon in this group. I give a very, very slight edge to the Yanks in this one.

The other three are a little tougher to handicap. I think that Namibia, by being in that group of death with France, Argentina and Ireland-along with the vastly improving-and very physical Georgians(Look, just to LIVE in Georgia you have to be pretty tough) run the risk of not only going 0 for 4 in their preliminary round games, risk getting some SERIOUS points run up on them by the Irish, Pumas and Bernard Laporte's men in bleu. The Japanese have a lot of heart-but against Australia, Wales, Fiji and a pretty decent Canadian Team(They showed a lot of heart giving the All Blacks a tough first half in Auckland) run the risk of giving up a lot of tries. Portugal's biggest problem agianst the formidiable All Blacks, the Scots, vastly improving Italians and the Romanians is that they are going to be at a serious size disadvantage in every game-they maybe the one team in France that even the Japanese could physically kick sand on.

So Here are my predictions for my "bottom feeders" in France: 20 -Namibia 19-Portugal 18-Japan 17- Tonga 16- USA

Well, it's official-it's less than month before our trip to France! I am so psyched to visit dear friends like Jean-Paul, Bernard, and the Gaertner family in Languedoc-the region in France in the south where I studied back in 1981-82.(Occitan Flag)

I know Becky and the kids are really pscyhed too.  Rachel is looking forward to Paris.

Ian's girlfriend Andrea is probably worried about him meeting some pretty Frenchwoman who can charm him and tempt his palate.

I know I am looking forward to a warm welcome from my friends.

But really looking forward to some serious Rugby More on the trip planning later!

A couple of postings back, I mentioned my dad's sister, my Aunt Kay. She lives in Australia now, in a town called Humpty Doo, near Darwin, in the Northern Territory. I had a chance to visit her there last year.

http://www.walkabout.com.au/locations/NTHumptyDoo.shtml

I think every kid should have a "Fun" Aunt. Kay fulfilled that role in spades. When you are a kid, you get really used to adults who could be condescending or just not even listen to you at all. She had, and still has the gift, to listen to a child and treat them as an equal. She also liked to tweak the nose of authority. She manifested this in a couple of ways by buying me and my brother Bill one year subscriptions to Playboy and Penthouse, when my brother was 16 and I was 15. As a medic in the Army(she enlisted on a dare when she was about 32) she worked in an obstetric unit. She liked to have fun with new parents like holding up black babies for white parents, and vice versa-untill she found out there really was a serious hanky-panky problem at her base in Germany. Kay said it was so bad that mom's did not ask if it was a boy or a girl, but if the baby was black or white. Once she became aware of this, she realized that it was no longer funny.

My aunt left Minnesota to move to Australia when I was about 5 years old. At the time I never Knew WHY she went, just that she would send us some really cool books on Australia, along with Koala bears, water buffalo horns, Wallaby skins and things that just seemed WAY cool. It should be added, that when my kids were little, Kay sent Ian and Rachel all kinds of Australian books, like the Blinky Bill series, or "Wombat Stew", or "Enoch the Emu".  Still, eventhough she lived in a really cool place, I never really understood why she left Minnesota as a young woman in her mid-twenties to go it alone so far from friends and family. This is the part of my tale where we can talk about why the good old days were not so good.

Growing up was not easy for my Aunt. My grandparents owned a dog kennel and pet shop. As it was a family business, my Aunt and my dad put in a lot of hours cleaning out dog cages and other jobs in the Doggie Shop. My aunt did not like frilly, girly-girl things like dresses, teas and the color pink. My aunt wanted to work with tools, get dirty, play sports. Because of that, she did not always see eye to eye with my grandmother. My aunt also had dyslexia. At that time, you were just labled as "Slow", and she was put in classes with kids who had various forms of mental retardation. She was made to feel that she was stupid. The one area of school she thought she could excel in was in small engine shop or woodworking shop. She was not allowed to take it because she was a young woman. She could have taken home economics, but not any of the industrial arts classes.  Those were all pretty alienating experiences, but that  could not have been enough to make her go so far away.

"You have to remember", my aunt told me last year, "The 1950's was not a great time to realize that you were Gay. Your Grandmother had a hard time accepting that. I looked on a globe, and Australia looked like the farthest point I could get away from Minnesota."

You would think that after everything that my aunt had been through, you would think that she would be a mean, bitter woman. Far from it. She is the funniest woman I know. She and her Partner Wendy are due for a visit, which we always enjoy. Her partner Wendy is kind of the Lesbian version of the late Steve Irwin. She has an encyclopedic knowlege of the wildlife and fauna of Australia. She also has some sort of animal radar that the rest of us mere mortals do not have. Last year, while driving back from a weekend of fishing we were driving at 60 miles an hour, when out of her PERIPHREAL vision, she said, "Hey, did you see that? An emu!"

I have no bloody idea how she saw it.

At any rate, my Aunt Kay is one of the most special people in my life. When my kids were each 12, she had them stay at her place in Australia-Ian for a month, Rachel for 5 months.  It breaks my heart to think of how much my aunt went through as a kid and teenager because they did not know how to work with a dyslexic girl who liked cars, carpentry and physical sports. Factor in being a young Gay woman and it was not a very "Minnesota Nice" time to come out. I think because she knew what it was like to be on the recieving end of shittiness from adults, she has always been more patient with kids. I know I am a better person for having my Aunt Kay in my life, and I know my kids are better people for having her being a fun, anarchic presence in their lives as well.

I come from a family of animal lovers. My grandparents owned "Adams Doggie Shop" in Richfield, Minnesota for many years. The only thing that might have been cooler than my grandparents owning a pet shop was if they had run an ice cream parlour or a candy shop. Still...being able to play with the animals as a kid and me and my brother Bill being able to play on the big sacks of Dog Chow in the basement was pretty cool. My dad and my aunt Kay grew up working in the family business. They both love animals, too. My brother Bill has 3 dogs and a cat. My Sister Wendy owned the mother of our Golden Retriever, Rambeau. My sister Amy has two dogs. We have two dogs(a Golden Retriever and an Olde English Bulldogge), two cats, ....and one horse.

My daughter Rachel has always had a passion for horses. I had always liked a lot of other animals: dogs, cats, rats(don't laugh, pet rats are cool as hell-but that's a story for another posting) As long as I can remember, she has loved horses. Now this is not just a kid who picked up "Black Beauty"  or "My Friend Flicka" and decided that she wanted make like a young Liz Taylor in "National Velvet". This kid read VET BOOKS as first and second grader-this kid was at whole different level compared to the average little girl.

I remember my wife and I throwing a pony party for Rachel when she must have been about 7 years old. We had a lot of her classmates over in our backyard riding a little pony. Rachel was having a ball, but the thing I remember most from that afternoon is that we have a neighbor who just HATES animals. I remember her standing on her porch, just glowering at these little girls having their pony party.

I have a cousin who raised Apaloosa horses down in Seguin, Texas-not far from San Antonio. Sue told me that Rachel was just "a natural" when it came to horses. Rachel was just in her element working with Sue's Apaloosa's in the South Texas heat. What always struck me after those couple of summers that she worked for Sue was that she always came back to Minnesota in such a better mood.

 Rachel also went to horse camp for several summers at Circle R Ranch in Long Praire, Minnesota. Same thing: She was in great spirits whenever she had significant horse time.

After writing checks for a few summers of going to horse camp, it hit me that for what we were spending, it just might be cheaper to just BUY a horse. Rachel had been saving money from babysitting and other odd jobs. She put in over 1000 bucks to purchase Gunner, her first horse. It was OK, at first. But Rachel just felt like the rapport was not their that she would like. She saw an add for a horse down in Albert Lea, Minnesota-near the Iowa border. She had looked at this horse before she picked Gunner. This time, she bought Maverick. To use Dick Vitale's term, Maverick is a wide-body. He's a good sized paint. Rachel has had him well over a year now and she just loves her boy. He had been abused, but now he is less skittish around men

People ask me if it spoiled Rachel helping her get her horse and paying the stable fees. I won't lie, it's not cheap. There are a lot of different ways to look at it. It's a helluva lot cheaper than paying for professional counseling.  She gets very fit when working with her horse and she has hung out with some nice kids in 4-H. I also have not had to deal with tons of suitors showing up at my doorstep to see Rachel.She also has had huge repsonsibilities with owning a horse and also has been put in charge of people's stables while they were gone for weekends or vacations-think about it: a 15 year old kid being put in charge of hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars of equipment, property and livestock. That' s a pretty heady responsibility. I may moan now and then when I have to write a check for a horse related expense, but I think she has gotten more out of the experience than the average teenager who has parents spending thousands of dollars on hockey equipement and soccer camps.

I have to admit. I don't mind being a horse "grandfather"...just don't tell Rachel.

Prop-Position in rugby. Among the starters, usually the players wearing numbers one and three. They. along with the Hooker(NO! not THAT kind of Hooker) represent the "front row" in a scrum-the signature move in rugby where the 8 forwards literally bang together like male deer fighting over a doe.

Mad props-An American expression where you give somebody 'their propers', or credit, or respect.

One of my favorite rugby blogs is kept by an expat Aussie living in London named Matt. His blog is: http://greenandgoldrugby.blogspot.com/

For a serious fan, his blog is really a joy to read. In his August 1st posting, he was kind enough to pull some video highlights from the 2003 Rugby World Cup Semi finals, when Australia dumped the New Zealand All Blacks.  In the video clip, there was one disturbing bit of action where a scrum collapsed, and one of the Wallaby Props got badly injured-he had a ruptured disk in his cervical(neck) vertebrae. He was wheeled off the field in a neck brace and back board to prevent an exacerabtion of this injury. When the scrum collapsed and he felt the pressure on his neck, the Wallaby prop yelled "Prop down! Prop down!" and the All Black props and pack backed off. This bit of sportsmanship  prevented a bad situation from getting worse.

Watching that action reminded me of an incident from this past spring, when my Metropolis   club was down at a tournament in Saint Louis. Our B squad was playing a Saint Louis club in the B-squad final (Kind of like being the world's tallest midget) It had been raining really hard the day before and the field was just a quagmire. In the process of doing a scrum, I totally lost my footing and fell flat on my ass just as the referree yelled "engage"(the command for the two packs to ram into one another). I felt TOTALLY vulnerable, like a car was about to hit me. I was thinking to myself " THIS is going to hurt". The Tight head prop from the other team saw my predicament and yelled "Prop down!" before I got drilled, and they backed off. I cannot tell you how relieved I was. I searched him out after the game to thank him. (A game that we won)

I think this episode illustrates why rugby is such a great game. It is a tough, physical game. You can get hurt. That said, there really is a code of ethics-particularly among front row players.