Sunday Fiddler
the boy
Ognisko, Fall 2022
Conestee Afternoon
Guitar with The Boy
When I was the Boy's age, I had no interest in guitar. When I was the Girl's age, my conception of volleyball was limited to what we played in gym class.
The Boy and I played guitar tonight for a while. The Girl went to sign documents for her fourth club season.
My life as a kid and theirs could not be more different in many ways. And that's a good thing.
Weblos Woods
Friday night
Saturday
Walking Around During Practice
While the Boy practices soccer, I either go for a walk or a run, depending primarily on how my knees feel. I'd discovered a nature path near the soccer fields long ago, and that path led to a sewer easement that in turn looked like another nature path. It wound through a forest and by a little creek.
When we came back from Poland and headed over there for the first practice of the fall season, I saw that developers had cleared the land and begun grading it for a new housing or apartment development.
Since then, the work has progressed, with the addition of a retention pond and several retaining walls.
I walked through the area today reflecting on the changes that have come and the further changes coming. What was only months ago a forest is now flat, barren ground; in a few months' time, it will become someone's home. They will likely not know about the transformation; they will like never have gone for a jog in the forest that became their backyard.
I find myself sometimes a little obsessed with these little tricks of time and knowledge, and I often wonder about the history of any given thing -- a viral video, a house in the middle of nowhere, a car left on the side of the road with a DUI tag -- and what led that car, that video, that house to be there at that moment. What led up to that? What were the events that followed one after another until the officer pulls over a weaving driver?
Autumnal Wednesday
It's All Souls' Day, so visiting Nana's and Papa's grave is of course in order. We would have visited yesterday but for the fact that the Girl was playing in the state semifinals, and our whole evening was a tangle.
Their win made the local paper:
Mauldin volleyball tops Dorman, wins first Upper State Championship in program history
For the first time in school history, Mauldin volleyball will play in the SCHSL state championship game.
The words that described what it felt like were hard to find, Mauldin volleyball coach Val Thoms said as her team celebrated on the court.
But there is one word to describe what Mauldin volleyball did Tuesday night:
Historic.
At home inside the Mauldin High School gymnasium the Maverick girls volleyball team defeated powerhouse Dorman 3-1 to win the Class AAAAA Upper State Championship and advance to the SCHSL state championship game for the first time in program history.
Mauldin plays the winner of Wando and Lexington — the Lower State champion — at 7 p.m. Saturday at Dreher High School in the state title game.
Students, coaches and parents swarmed the court as soon as the final point was scored.
“It’s phenomenal,” Mauldin senior Jurnee Robinson said. "We’ve been trying for this the past four years. We just feel like now is our time and we’re going to win it. We’re going to give it all we got.”
Mauldin senior Anna Schneider said it was important for her team to finally get past the Cavaliers, who swept their postseason competition en route to the AAAAA state championship last season. That included a third-round playoff win over the Mavericks (31-7).
“It’s so surreal,” Schneider said. “It was so great playing on our home court, that meant so much to us. Those long years that we’ve lost to them … it really means a lot to get over this hump and be a great team.
“It just means so much. I literally can’t put it in to words.”
Robinson set the tone early and throughout the match. Her six kills in the first set allowed the Mavericks to take the set 25-18. The LSU volleyball commitment and 2021 all-state selection had 485 kills entering Tuesday’s state semifinal match and finished with 28 kills. Schneider had 15 kills.
After winning the first set, Mauldin dropped the second, 25-21, and Dorman (31-6) seemed to rebound well. But Mauldin took the third set and then won the fourth set, 25-19, to clinch the win. Dorman was led in kills by Carly O’Brien, who had 14 total in the match.
“We just told them, just be patient,” Thoms said she told her team after dropping the second set. “And we have to serve the ball in more, pass a little better out of serve-receive and then when were in system … we can’t be stopped. So, just take a couple deep breaths … and win it with our offense.”
Last season, Dorman defeated River Bluff to win the AAAAA state championship for the first time since 2017. Paula Kirkland, Dorman's legendary volleyball coach, has 14 state titles as head coach at Dorman and is one of two volleyball coaches in SCHSL history to win over 1,000 matches.
“It’s really kind of indescribable to be honest,” Thoms said. “I think its what this program needs – and what volleyball in this area needs. Because, Dorman is the name … I just think this proves; it doesn’t matter. We just go out, do your thing, be good athletes and anybody can beat anybody.”
Greenville News
It puts yesterday's win in perspective.
In the evening, the Boy and I went swimming, taking one of his friends with us.
Shots from Yesterday
Throw In
It's heartbreaking to watch the Boy's team, who has won only one game this year, take a 1-0 lead in the first half only to lose 1-2. But the Boy had a great game.
"I'd say we should move him up to attack," said one of the parents, "but he's our best defender, too."
Wednesday
Students today began an incredibly short Halloween unit that will focus on irony, so we did a quick review of irony with a gallery walk. It's always a fun activity: the kids move around the room, looking at various images or texts and discuss them with a particular end in mind. Today, for example, they were to determine how each image was ironic.
"Don't just explain what's going on in the picture," I clarified after we'd done a quick review of what irony is. "If you don't explain the expectation and how that expectation was defied, you haven't explained irony."
In the evening, the Boy and I went out to find basketball shoes for him as he begins his basketball season.
At first, I was hesitant: "They're somewhat expensive," I texted K, "and I don't really know that he needs them."
"He only has one pair of shoes," she replied, "so he'll need another pair soon enough."
I looked at him: "Will you wear these to school after basketball season?"
"Of course!"