December 1

The first day of the last month of 2011. With Jenny in Q-ville in the morning, we had our usual Thursday lunch date at the downtown pizza parlor. In the evening I was over at McCaskey for the first scrimmage of basketball season, the boys hosted Susquehanna Township (from suburban Harrisburg). Nine returnees played for JPM including Brian Newsome, Calvert Gantz, Jalen Washington, Shaki Staten, Christian Davidson, Blaise Glover, Luis Fuentes, Diante Cherry and Aaron Swinton. It was particularly encouraging to see Aaron playing, the last time we saw him was in September when he injured his knee playing football. That was eleven weeks ago but on this night he was moving well and showing no ill effects whatsoever. The club will have one more scrimmage before starting the season on December 10. The regular season schedule is twenty-two games as usual, as it stands right now I'll be absent from four because of the Royals (in other years it's been five or six so this season we got lucky). The non-league portion of the schedule features the yearly gauntlet of Harrisburg, Chester and Reading High, the annual holiday tournament plus a game against Cedar Cliff (another Harrisburg-area school) in January. It's a tough road but the only way to find out about yourself is to play against stiff competition. Take care, thanks for reading.