Just when I thought I had gotten over the rookie mistakes, I made one of the biggest ones of all. I got to camp in reasonable time, I had my wet towel for my neck and my bottles of frozen water and my binoculars and not one but two pens, since my pen the other day was getting a bit skippy. I got a seat which was not yet in the shade but soon would be, sat on my cushion (because those bleachers are a challenge even for my well-padded avoirdupois) and settled in to start writing. The only problem was, I had nothing to write upon.
Nothing. I had forgotten to put my legal pad back into the bag after taking it out to write up yesterday’s notes. I had nothing else, not even a few old receipts. Fortunately I remembered that St. Vincent’s hasn’t yet replaced the old-school paper towel dispensers in the women’s bathroom with air dryers, bless them. So I left my cushion there to save my place and rushed into the loo. I managed to extract six sheets (they are the sort that cut off at a certain length), and found a cardboard box in the cleaning cart from which I liberated a flap to write on, and I was back in business. Sort of, anyhow. When I returned to my seat some people had sat down next to it and left only the size of the cushion, a small one at that, at the end of the bleacher, which was a bit tight, but I made it work.
Fortunately the Steelers seemed to have their heads in the game rather better than I did. The players were trickling onto the field about the same time I made it back to my seat, and Ben and Maurkice Pouncey continued their hit-the-crossbar-of-the-uprights competition. Pouncey was still losing, but he doesn’t give up.
Continue reading “Training Camp Diary: Thursday August 4”
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