January 1-4

The well-known rock group U2 once sang that "nothing changes on New Years Day", for me 2012 started quietly on Sunday with little going on but pro football games on TV. Monday was similar except for lunch at the mall, all of the usual January 1 college bowl games were on this day (I guess they know better than to buck up against the pros). On Monday night I was talking to Jenny on the phone, her mother had been taken into the hospital via ambulance. Helen has a pacemaker and every so often she experiences unusual heart rates that require attention. She was taken in around 10:00 or so and was discharged six hours later. She waited until 8:00 to call me, I took her home and we had lunch at the plaza in Quarryville. On Tuesday night we were at McCaskey for the bus ride to Millersville as the Red Tornado played at Penn Manor. This was a game that no one in attendance will forget for some time, it took no less that three overtime periods before JPM prevailed 81-78. The story of this game was roster depth: PM used ten players but only four of them scored, two players combined for 73 of their 78 points. McCaskey used ten players as well and they all scored as four hit double figures. Shaki Staten led with 16, Diante Cherry had 15, Devonne Pinkard added 11, Brian Newsome had 10 and for good measure Luis Fuentes just missed the cut with nine points. It's encouraging to see the club exhibit such balance, the non-starters accounted for 34 of the 81 points scored. Although this was only the fourth of sixteen league games it was a huge victory as the boys move to 3-1 in the league, 1-0 within the division and 6-3 overall. PM athletic director Jeff Roth is an old schoolmate of mine, I said to him after the game that if this night was indicative of what divisional play will be like this year we should follow the advice of the late Gene Hart (longtime Philadelphia Flyers play-by-play announcer), "fasten your seat belts my friends, it's going to be a bumpy ride". With it all we got back to JPM much later than usual, I walked into my house at 10:45. Wednesday was a quiet day with little happening, the day had some significance but I stopped caring about my birthday a long time ago. Take care, thanks for reading.