So, thanks to
@JokesOnYou for providing the update on HP. Good to get some across-the-league talk trickling in… I also appreciate it because, shamelessly, it serves as a good bifurcation from the leadoff messages in this year’s iteration to
bring you this…
The above is a familiar sight to many readers. To many who sit and have sat in the visiting bleachers for their due reasons, I suspect the visit at some point or another evokes some general emotions of intrigue. It's a house that is as big as it is small. It's a house that decors itself not in any particularly conspicuous manner, but the seals of its walls is cemented by the spirit of its more-frequent occupants... a communal belief that the best house to keep is one that typifies
the way you walk. The satisfaction of having what's in front of you, what it is that surrounds you, for as long as it has been that way, is a satisfaction that is hard to come by -- especially in a world so heavily encumbered by material wants and the pervasive need to continuously 'keep up' even if it comes to pursuing big things that are above one's means. To have that satisfaction is a recognition, and to have both that satisfaction in what surrounds you and
in that recognition, frankly, begets
gratitude.
Gratitude is a powerful thing. It extends across life, in so many ways. The capacity to have gratitude is a gift. If you can find gratitude in the little things, particularly in the unsought avenues of recreation like high school basketball, you can more easily reconcile times where you feel frustration and disappointment. You can also take joy in the successes, with or without gratitude, but if you take joy and appreciation for the experience with an application of gratitude, you come out more the richer spiritually. This house has facilitated the dealings of all emotions imaginable on the hardwood; and it's been an equal-opportunity facilitator in those magical wins and crushing defeats to all for so many years. There may not be a more perilous place in 740 area code for road teams than this gymnasium on a winter weekend night. For long as it has been the case, beyond the '10s and beyond the '00s, even into the 90's, this wayward son can't help but wonder "all those walls are missing is a sign above the home bleachers that reads
lasciate ogni speranza voi ch'entrate -- after all, those folks in the visiting bleachers need something to look at during warm-ups." But, alas,
gratitude for the fact that the house is as fine as it is proves to be sufficient.
The floor above holds a value. That value is, well,
sentimental and perhaps only sentimental to some. Installed in 1993, that surface played host to a boys' program 'Decade of Dominance' that spanned in the beginning the final years of the American memory 'of a time' when there was a sense of security coast-to-coast, with the back-nine of that 'Dominance' providing a sense of comfort and as a place of relief to a community in the years following when that security was taken away, as the century turned; it was the home court of many great players on the girls' side; a handful of Mid-State League volleyball crowns were won on that surface. For many more, it was the stable ground upon which students were situated for all-school Mass year-over-year-over-year. If you've ever had the fortune (so-to-speak) of owning a car as old as that floor, or older, as a car that you've had so many formative years and had many memories tied to, it's understandable why you might feel a sense of pride in that you've been able to keep it for as long as you were able to. But, at some point, it has to be moved on from. After all, you can't hold onto everything forever. What makes that parting more palatable?
Gratitude for having had.
At some point, we face things in our life that
take our breath away. They may not always be positive or awe-inspiring things, and perhaps for good reason. Sympathy and empathy alike, toward tragedy that befalls those you love, for instance, are unfortunate but necessary pains in existence. But whatever the medium, context and motivation is in identifying what can have such a profoundly deep impact to you on the positive side of life, it is of great comfort to the soul.
To see the successor floor, the only emotion I can make sense of (and make space for) is a
deep sense of happiness for the students, and to those with more direct stakes. There are many layers that drive that particular emotion, but suffice to say that a personally-relentless passion of wanting to see
bigger and better moments/days/things for the school and its students has reached its ease. It's been an admittedly taxing and tiring marathon spanning thirteen (13) years to have that thirst being at the forefront of your mind, and I'm grateful that community actors and the school administration worked together in making this bigger and better thing happen for many. At long last, a point of pride that the successive generation of immediate parties and today's students can call
their own.
A new era begins.
)