Me and my trophy: A story that contains children

Long ago, before the month of August, which was an especially long month in some senses and an especially short one in others, I was part of a plaid-wearing, flag-waving team of beach blokes that managed to win a division in that beach Ultimate tournament of Wildwood, New Jersey. I recounted much of that adventure somewhere down there. Scroll down and I'm quite certain it can be located. This victory was particularly sweet as it had come after a number of years of losing. Those tales are also recounted in the archives. It's never the winning or the losing that really matter, but sometimes they do matter. Sometimes they matter enough to warrant a golden cup. This was one of those times. On that fateful day, I held the cup and drank from the cup and then I said farewell to the cup.

It is difficult to share a single trophy among a whole team, but I wanted my day with the cup. I had grand plans. The cup and I would sing and dance together. We would frolic in that way that only victors can frolic. This would be beautiful and glorious and it began to seem as if it would never happen.

Saturday, the cup and I were reunited. I grabbed the golden chalice and took a short victory lap around the picnic area. It was as golden and as heavy as I remembered. I gazed at my golden reflection and my beard shined just a little brighter. First, I held my cup with my left hand. Then, I held it with my right. I decided to toss the frisbee with my fellow picnic people, but rather than relinquish my grasp, I carried the cup with us. When one hand grew weary, I switched to the other. This led to an especially interesting game of catch as my fellow picnic people also switched to throwing with their off-hands. Passers-by must have thought we were rather talented at catching the disc to be throwing so poorly. I'm sure they also thought that I looked like a champion.

They were right.

The difficulty of being a champion is that others seek to knock champions off their high horses. Fortunately, my horse is vertically challenged. I don't have a horse, but the trophy did attract the attention of a young boy. He wanted to hold the cup. I was still uninterested in releasing it. The last time I let it go, I did not see it for more than a month. The boy was persistent, but I held my ground and my cup.

The boy attacked. At first I danced away from his advances, sometimes darting away in a sprint, other times with a juke move, but the boy pressed on. He climbed me. He strangled me. He hit me. He grabbed my shoulders and rocked me back and forth. I tried to discourage him by spinning and by holding the cup ever higher. This back and forth, this dance of strength and wits with a young boy went on for quite some time, maybe even an hour. Somemtimes, he would ask nicely or get his even smaller brother to ask for the trophy. Other times, he would come at me ferociously. He'd sneak up and jump on me or run by and make a grab at the gold. He would walk away, run a race, throw a disc, look distracted and then attack again. He'd climb my back again and I'd hold the trophy above my head and try to spin him away.

"What strange champion is this?" park-goers must have pondered. "He holds a trophy high and spins with a boy on his back." Perplexed, they must have wished to be champions themselves.

I just wished this kid's parents would show up before one of us got injured.