The Farewell Tour Begins… At Age 17

It is a rainy, drab, chilly Sunday. It’s also a great day. Helaine, Stefanie and I have just been to Steffie’s field hockey team annual dinner.

Steffie received the award as ‘Most Improved Player’. It was a great honor and an award I feel was well deserved. Watching her play defense was amazing for Helaine and me. Steffie was fearless, aggressive and had an uncanny ability to pick the pocket of offensive players.

She wore her injuries (and she got pretty banged up this season) as a badge of honor.

The team and many parents got together in the basement banquet room at ‘Eli’s on Whitney,’ a local restaurant. Upstairs the bar was busy with banks of TVs showing out-of-town NFL games. Downstairs, it was all about the high school field hockey season that had just ended.

As the dinner went on, and the coach and some players spoke, Helaine and I realized this was the beginning of the end of Steffie’s high school life. Sure, she’ll be going to school for another six months or so, but now she’ll be doing many things for the last time.

That’s what made this celebration bittersweet. There’s no guarantee we’ll see Steffie play field hockey again – or that she’ll ever play again. It’s not the kind of game you play pick-up style with friends. There’s a good chance she’ll go to a college with no field hockey program/

Though field hockey has been important to all of us, it’s not that field hockey’s ending that’s so important. It’s that we’re leaving one part of her life and heading into another. There’s no stopping. There’s no turning back.

We hope it’s a bright future facing Steffie. She deserves a bright future. But no matter how bright, we’ll miss where we’ve been.

At this point, life is moving much too quickly. Steffie might not agree with that but I know Helaine does unconditionally.

Off to Newport

Since she was a little girl, Steffie has played team sports. We have always gone to see her play when we could, whether it was basketball, lacrosse, or field hockey. Yesterday was field hockey in Newport, RI – 2 1/2 hours away. The day was beautiful, so we decided to go.

Oh, did I mention Steffie said it would be OK for me to bring my camera?

We have recently found that I-95 is awful on Saturday’s. The traffic is bad until you approach the split between I-95 and I-395 where it gets worse. I’m hoping this is summer oriented traffic and will abate when the warm weather crowd decides to stay home.

Newport is off the beaten path as far as the Interstate Highway System is concerned. We took I-95 to Rhode Island exit 3 and then got on a two lane road – seemingly forever.

Actually, the fact that it was a two lane road through a rural area wasn’t the problem. It was the speed limit that got me. Most of the way the limit was posted at 40 mph or less.

C’mon, I do 40 mph in my driveway!

Being on an island, the last part of the trip took us over two spectacular bridges (note to Rhode Island – EZ-Pass would be nice) with views of sailboat – filled bays.

I have been to Newport a few times, and was never impressed. What was wrong with me? This is a great destination. It is beautiful in so many ways, from the seaside views to the mansions to the walkable streets with shops and restaurants. More on that later.

Helaine had printed out directions from Steffie’s school’s website. It, unfortunately, referenced businesses that might have changed names or gone out of business. Basically, we went on a wild goose chase through Newport in search of St. George’s School.

Finally, in desperation, I called the school. The person who answered, quickly offered up that she was from Massachusetts. Luckily, after another few minutes of driving around I found a landmark she knew! It didn’t take long to get to the school.

It’s tough to believe there’s another school like St. George’s. On 200 acres in Newport, it has sweeping ocean views. The land alone must be worth hundreds of millions of dollars! The campus is dominated by a large Gothic chapel. There are numerous, well kept fields for field hockey, soccer and football.

Steffie’s team was there for pre-season field hockey scrimmages. Over the course of the afternoon, her team played three games – winning none. Still, it was just practice and Steffie played really well.

She had been a defensive player, but has now moved into an offensive position, basically covering the entire field. I have no idea how she and the others played three games. This is a physical game. Don’t think, because these are girls playing, that it’s any less aggressive.

I brought my Canon Digital Rebel and both lenses with me. It was an opportunity to try out a feature this camera has – continuous focus for sports – and the 70-300 mm zoom lens.

I am happy with how the camera and lenses worked in nearly every way. My long zoom lens is as ‘powerful’ as the lenses the pros use, but it is not as ‘fast.’ It needs much more light to produce similar pictures, and that forces me to either shoot with a slower shutter, wider aperture, faster film equivalent speed, or not take the picture at all.

There was so much bright light in Newport, it didn’t make a difference.

Looking back, most of the pictures were sharp and clear. The sports mode gave me shutter settings that were very fast, mostly taking shots faster than 1/1000 of a second. That meant stopping the action without blur.

I have read reports of this Sigma 70-300 mm lens not being particularly sharp. Maybe for the most critical of applications that’s true. It looks pretty sharp to me.

One of the cool parts of taking pictures at St. George’s are the amazing views. Many of the shots show the beach in the background. If you didn’t know any better you might think this was Malibu, not Rhode Island.

After the third game we decided to head into downtown Newport for dinner. I found a place to park ($10 – “You can park it yourself, I don’t take my test for another two weeks.”) and we began to walk around.

I was hungry, and no one objected, so we ducked into Christie’s, located on the docks. The wait was 15 minutes, so Helaine and Steffie went to a store, while I went out on the dock to take some shots.

It wasn’t long before we were seated, outside on the deck. We didn’t know it when we picked Christie’s, but our view was to the west and we were about to see a remarkable sunset.

Helaine and Steffie shared lobster bisque and I had chowder. Very good. My dinner was fried clams. Helaine had scallops. Steffie didn’t like the stuffing of her stuffed shrimp, but everything else was fine.

As the Sun went down I picked up my camera to take some pictures. I could see, in front of me, some people with a point and shoot camera trying to get a portrait taken. It wasn’t going to work – so I offered to take the shot and email it to them. That opened the flood gates.

By the time I was done, I had four email addresses in my pocket and had taken pictures of, and with, a bunch of people. It was around this time that our waiter recognized me and offered up that he was originally from Old Saybrook… instantly forcing me to up his tip another 5 %.

We passed on dessert at Christie’s and headed to Ben and Jerry near where we were parked. The day had gone on a very long time. I was getting tired.

We headed back toward Connecticut, following directions Helaine had downloaded from the net. I got us to I-95 where she took over and finished the trip.

I think we were all surprised at how much we like Newport. We will definitely be back.

Blogger’s note: There is a photo gallery with more pictures from our day in Newport here. Each picture on this page is also clickable for a larger view.

Fractured Fairy Tales

Before Stefanie was born, Helaine and I had a long running joke. If our child turned out to have any athletic acumen, there should be an investigation.

Let the investigation begin!

Steffie’s school requires students to play sports – period. Nearly everyone, two of the three semesters a year, plays some sort of team sport. Steffie has played basketball, lacrosse and field hockey.

She’s actually been playing basketball since she was in grade school. This can probably be attributed to the very popular University of Connecticut’s women’s basketball team, which is a perennial powerhouse.

Over the past few years, Steffie has gravitated more and more to field hockey and there’s no doubt it’s her favorite sport.

Forget what you’ve heard about women being demure. These girls mix it up. Field hockey is by no means a gentle game under any circumstances. Wooden stick in hand, playing over sometimes rough fields, the ball is hard and travels fast. Shin guards are worn, but that’s about it for padding (except the goalie who wears an unbelievable amount of foam and plastic).

Steffie is very good at this game… and fearless. Playing a defensive position, she knows letting a ball get past her can easily become a goal by the other team.

Today, playing at home, her team dismantled a team from Stamford. With two quick goals in the first few minutes, they never looked back. Steffie played hard and with great skill.

She was fast and relentless, digging out the ball and changing it’s direction. Her position calls for a ball stealer, not a pass catcher. She’s perfect.

Defense is not a glory position. When played properly you don’t hear about those playing it. When played poorly, you’re counting losses.

All went well until there were about 10 minutes to go. In the middle of the action, another player swiped for the ball and caught Steffie’s right hand, middle finger. Most hits wouldn’t have caused a problem, but Steffie’s own stick stopped the motion and concentrated the force into her finger.

She was in pain.

It wasn’t long before Steffie was on the sidelines being attended to by Ethan Victor, who was assisting the trainer. The finger and hand were swelling.

It seemed like the right thing to do to go to the hospital, so Steffie and I drove to Yale/New Haven Children’s Hospital’s Pediatric Emergency Room. When the receptionist was taking down Steffie’s information and asked where she was born, I got to say, “upstairs.” Steffie was born at Yale, like George W. Bush (though he is less likely to admit to any Connecticut connection).

Ethan the trainer, was now Ethan the emergency room trauma specialist! That was a good thing because he helped speed along what would have been a slow and tedious process. The emergency room was jammed. It was “Sports Injury Saturday” with soccer, bicycle and paintball related injuries around us, and more that I don’t know about.

After seeing a few doctors and nurses and getting an X-Ray, we were told Steffie had fractured the tiny bone at the tip of her finger. More than likely, it would be just fine. But, Steffie would have to wear a splint for a while. And, field hockey would be out for two weeks… OK, maybe a week if her pediatrician said it was OK.

We drove home. Steffie was still in pain, but I think there’s a certain satisfying comfort in really knowing what’s wrong with you.

Though she always shies away from pictures and complains I take too many, Steffie agreed to ‘pose’ for this shot to archive the occasion (and possibly email to friends – I never quite understand what she’ll do). She will wear the splint with pride. Her team won.