Category Archives: Timbers

Do-over

Posted on by
15

I was 41 when I went to law school, and I thought that was my red convertible. Nope. Turns out that was only the beginning. A midlife crisis doesn’t have to be a bad thing, even if it’s not always pretty. It’s only natural at the midpoint to look back and to look forward. I think I’ve gone looking for the parts of me that I lost, forgot or left along the way, first by taking back my fears.

Team sports are on my list of fears, along with heights, squirrels, and bears, which is sensible if you ask me, but that story will have to wait for another day. Continue reading →

Bury Me in Green and Gold!

Posted on by
1

For the first time in my life, I am a sports fan. (Maybe not a great one, because this post is actually about ice cream.) I’ve watched sports and enjoyed watching them, even rooting for one side to win. But I had never attached myself to one team before moving to Portland, when losses feel personal, when you start saying “we.” The Portland Timbers are my team. (See “Opening Night” for a little background on my soccer career, which lasted one day back in 1978.) Continue reading →

St. Patrick’s Day

Posted on by
2

I have requirements for a sports bar. I’m not entirely comfortable saying that, because it doesn’t seem to be me, but it turns out to be true. I discovered that tonight.

I’m well beyond the age when going out to a bar for St. Patrick’s Day is even remotely interesting, yet that’s what I’ve done for two straight nights. Friday is included because I went to Kells Irish Pub for their St. Patrick’s Day Irish Festival. (When my dad’s mother married my grandfather, my great aunt told her that she was now Irish. And so we’ve all been all Irish ever since.)

I went to Kells to watch boxing, not some pay-per-view event, but live amateur boxing. Continue reading →

Opening Night

Posted on by
1

I just got home from the Timbers home opener. I love the Portland Timbers. My family knows this about me, because I’ve been talking about the Timbers for the past year. They also know that I was most likely born wearing a bow tie, more at home at an opening night, than a home opener. I’m not exactly a sports fan. At least I wasn’t.

I moved to Portland, Oregon, just a little more than a year ago. For reasons still unknown to me, I bought season tickets to the Timbers. Not just one ticket to one soccer game, but season tickets (and since renewed them). I had never even been to a professional soccer game before. I almost watched my cousins play a junior high school game once, but a storm moved in, canceling the game. Maybe it was the ad campaign, I don’t know.

Sure, I also played soccer as a kid.

Okay, I played one day of soccer in 1978. Continue reading →