Same Old, Some New

It is now the third time since I started this blog that I'm logging in to post and report that, although my team had some good games, we ultimately lost out completely in the World Bunnock Championship tournament in Macklin, Saskatchewan. Every year, all sorts of diverse descendants, in-laws, and friends of the Russian-German pioneers of that part of the country flock back to their ancestral homeland to compete in what, on face value, looks like a really silly game.

I can now add a sixteenth notch to my non-corporeal belt in recognition of sixteen such world championships attended (out of a total of 16), but despite seven years or so of attempting it, I'm still waiting for the first notch to indicate winning something. Anything. Even the bottom prize in the "D" Consolation event is beyond reach it seems.

The irony in the whole issue of doing equally abysmally for each of the half dozen years or more that I've been playing is that I've definitely improved in skill, and my team was good in general this year. Actually, all my family played well, despite less practice than ever. We all lost out, totally, though. It wasn't that we didn't win ANY games, it was that we never won them back to back; you'll never advance in the tournament if you can't win back-to-back.

Still, it was a great weekend, as always. My brother, sister, cousin, and I played together, the first year I've been on a team entirely in more-or-less my peer group (I'm the oldest of the team, but a four year, six day gap between my and my sister beats previous years with the younger siblings and parents), and it was our cousin's first time playing at Macklin. We had a good time--especially teasing my sister!

As good as it was, it's hard for the most part to come up with particulars about the weekend that stood out. For me, a part of what makes the tournament so attractive is its sameness from year to year. It functions as something of a reunion as you get to see the same parcel of cousins (some more, some less) that quite often you don't get to see otherwise. It's part pilgrimage, in that the Saturday night Mass is always one of the religious highlights of the year for me, and gathered as half the congregation is from across western Canada, there's definitely a similarity. No, if it weren't for an unexpected connection, there'd be little particular to this year to note, other than the fact that it was extremely windy all weekend. I enjoyed that, since it really cooled off the heat, which would have been extreme otherwise, but it made it a little dusty and some people really didn't care for it.

However, my Macklin report does not end there because, in fact, I was to be surprised to make an unanticipated connection back to the Eucharistic Congress.

Now, it really shouldn't have been all that unanticipated, since I had run into a couple in Quebec who had Macklin roots, and indeed the husband had claimed to have been to all the tournaments as well--and indeed, once he said he was from Macklin, I immediately recognised him as one of the Stangs (distant relatives. More importantly, since that's true of everyone in the tournament, a rather prominent name in the Bunnock field). So I wasn't entirely unsurprised when I caught sight of him later on Saturday afternoon. He didn't recognise me at first, but the guy sitting beside him, who I did NOT recognise, had also been at the Congress, recognised me, and we renewed our acquaintances briefly, and that was that.

I should also mention that on Saturday morning I noticed a priest walking around sporting a Belgian flag. At the opening ceremonies at noon, he was put front and centre as an international guest, and, while interested, I didn't think too much of it, since we've had Australians, Japanese, and British players turn up before. The fact that Fr. Fredrick was, in fact, a priest, was a bit surprising, but I didn't think about it, since this was Macklin and the whole town is Catholic (or so the majority makes it feel. These are my ancestral roots, after all).

It was a surprise, therefore, to be coming out of the pew at the end of Mass on Saturday evening and to look back and see another face from the Eucharistic Congress. There was no mistaking her, however, since I had spent a week close enough to floor that I'd become familiar with seeing the same volunteers everyday, and since the St. Joseph's seminarians had been the only group of pilgrims to eat at the same cafeteria as the Youth Service volunteers, I was quite confident.

So in a rather unlike-the-usual-shy-Michael approach, I went over and asked if she had been at the Eucharistic Congress as a volunteer and upon an affirmative answer, I introduced myself, and asked what she was doing in Macklin. Her companion (if I recall aright, one of a group of CCO (Catholic Campus Outreach)-related people there) had recognised me from the Congress, though I had to confess I didn't recognise him (at least not at the moment, though in hindsight I do think he was familiar, though certainly not enough to have said where from... if not Macklin).

Anyway, it turns out that she had been coming to Macklin for three or four years, having been dragged out via the CCO connection by the same Stang that I had already run into both in Quebec and in Macklin. The Eucharistic Congress connection went farther, however, because it turned out that Fr. Fredrick was himself out in Macklin as a result of the Congress, having been loaned to the Archdiocese of Quebec and having met the volunteers at the Congress. He had come out to Saskatoon for some of his summer holidays, and it was apparently decided that he simply had to come out and try Bones (I agree, he simply had to try).

Though it didn't absorb great chunks of my weekend to any extent, this chance encounter really made my weekend--quite possibly because of the above-mentioned pilgrimage aspect I associate with Macklin. To discover a connection back to the spiritual highwater mark of my summer, as well as to see that people like CCO employees and Eucharistic Congress volunteers love the tournament as much as I do is totally awesome, if only because it means I'm not crazy.

It also meant that, on Sunday night, I was able to get the right connections to find out about the extra-ordinary Mass on Monday morning. Extra-ordinary in the sense of "out of the ordinary", since Monday is pastor's day off, so there's normally no Mass, but Fr. Fredrick was willing to do one. I wouldn't have known otherwise, however, and since it wasn't a regular Mass, I wouldn't have known the time if I hadn't been able to make contact on Monday morning.

As it turned out, that was almost as awesome a Mass as the Saturday night one. There was pretty much the full musical complement--more than a typical weekday Mass, certainly, and probably a special tribute to the occasion, and because Monday was the Feast of St-Jean-Marie-Baptiste Vianney, I was extra-pleased to be able to get to Mass, since he's both the patron saint of pastors (and so something of a favourite saint for this seminarian) as well as the saint whose name I chose for Confirmation. Fr. Fredrick is also quite a funny preacher. Rather quiet and dry, but still making jokes in his slow English. If he were really fluent, I suspect he'd be hilarious.

So all in all, it was an awesome weekend. I drove my cousin back home, since she's from the Edmonton area, and my family was headed back to Olds. Then I got stuck at my aunt and uncle's for most of the evening, only getting home at midnight last night, but that wasn't so back. I love spending time with family, and this is a branch of it I haven't been around as much as I'd like (which is actually true of every branch, I think...). We also stopped in on the way back to visit Grandma, which was also good, since it's been a few months, and my cousin is off to Ontario for the next year and so this is probably the last such visit for a while.

What with meeting the Eucharistic Congress connection and having a cousin there for the first time, I took to thinking to myself on Sunday afternoon about what it would be like to have the different Barrow-downers out there, but as much as I think all Barrow-downers would enjoy playing Bones (objections to the idea of playing with parts of dead horses notwithstanding), I don't think the tournament would work for all of them. Although, to be honest... I've seen people dragged out there that loved it, despite the odds. Still, I think I know enough about some 'Downers that I could probably generalise...

The Finns, I decided first, would end up loving it. This struck me as momentarily odd, because the tournament is rather redneck in some aspects, but the more I think about it, the more I agree--but they'd have to be there en masse.

Rune would really like it. You get to randomly meet people all day. There's lots of partying and drinking (though I do suspect he'd consider the beer quality rather indiscriminate) and an active, party atmosphere. Just as long as he didn't talk politics...

Jay, I don't think, would like it. Maybe with the right crowd to hang out with he'd enjoy observing some of it, but I really can't see him getting into the spirit of it that much. And I don't think it's the fact that he's Hindu (though the tournament is definitely, as a rural Saskatchewanian event, pretty whitewashed), so much as the fact that he's an Oxford intellectual.

Fea would dislike it for similar reasons as Jay, though not the same. There would also, I think, be an element of dislike for being around the large crowds all the time, and where the boorish redneckness might amuse and inflame Jay, I think Fea would just dislike it generally.

The Phantom is also hard to picture at Macklin... though I could see him enjoying it well enough if he had a team of his friends. And I can definitely see him being the accomplished player.

Mithalwen is the sort who would enjoy it if it was her family... but it isn't, so I really can't see her getting into it... though I think I could be wrong. It's also possible that she'd really enjoy it, if playing with a team of friends.

This is about where I stopped... not so much because I couldn't do mental analyses (right or wrong) on any other 'Downers, but because I think I got distracted or had a game to play or something, and I never picked up the thread again. I would now, but I'm just a bit too tired. What with getting home at midnight and having my usual early morning before work, I was really sluggish today...