Sunday, June 12, 2005

Boomerangs

Just got back into the sport of tossing boomerangs. I started doing it back in 1984 when my marriage was breaking up. I found it was good therapy and exercise at the same time. I even got my 4 sons interested in the sport. Over the next 20 years, I would throw only occasionally, sometimes going several years without touching a rang. A lot of my boomerangs I distributed amongst my kids. They continued an interest in the sport over the years, and during my most recent visit with two of my son's in Louisiana I went out with them to throw. I'd forgotten how much fun and also what a physical workout it was ,which my body quickly reminded me over the next day or so. I purchased a few new rangs and renewed my acquaintance with Rich Harrison, The Boomerang Man. I've never met Rich in the 21 years since my first purchase, but consider him a friend and very generous human being.

A month and 5 new boomerangs later, I was back in Hawaii, in Kailua on the island of Oahu. Now Hawaii, although a beautiful place and having comfortable temperatures all year, is in many ways not the ideal place to toss boomerangs. There are strong tradewinds a lot of times, and when tossing boomerangs, no wind to medium wind is best. One also needs a big, deserted field to have room enough to allow for an occasional, or in my case, quite a few wayward tosses. In Hawaii, finding such a field is almost as impossible as trying to find a surf spot where you're the only surfer. Oh, there are quite a few large ball/soccer fields around town, but with the year round, almost perfect weather, there is usually some event taking place on them all the time.

I made several attempts to find an ideal place, including a little used, three tennis court area (Where I could only throw one of my plastic short distant rangs) and a small field bordered on one side by a highway and the other by a sawgrass covered hillside. A bad toss, with my newest and smallest rang, had four of us looking in the serrated edged, chest high weeds for fifteen minutes. Three of us, including myself, abandoned any hope of ever finding it and went back on the field to collect the rest of my boomerangs and leave. Fortunately, my girlfriend, an intensive care nurse in the newborn unit of a local hospital, did not want to give up quite yet (Which is why she's probably such a great nurse) and a few minutes later emerged; scratched and itching, like the rest of us, but with boomerang in hand (I fell in love with her all over again!).

I have now had to resort to getting up at 5 am on the weekends and going to the baseball and soccer field at the elementary school near my home, to get 2 hours of clear air space, before baseball practice or all day games start. But, it's enough for now, and it does have an unexpected benefit. I now get to "sleep in" Monday through Friday because I don't have to get up for work till 6 am on weekdays. God truly does work in mysterious ways.