Some weeks after peak, when things had slowed down considerably, Matthew stopped by to talk with Helen and to dig a new compost pit with the tractor. After Matthew was done digging the hole, Henry solicited his help for the construction of our new GGI regulation basketball court. Matthew went to work with the tractor, clearing all the weeds from in front of the left building. It was amazing to watch, since up to then our only other option would have been to cut the weeds down one by one, with shears in one hand and an insane desire to play B-ball in the other. When Matthew was done, all the green was gone, but there were still roots sticking out all over the place. We attacked these with hoes, shears, and rakes, until we had a reasonably obstacle-free area cleared. The next step was to get the basket up. For some reason, there just so happened to be a random basketball hoop lying around on GGI. We got this from the back and planned to put it up over the middle window. Of course, the window had to be boarded over before we could start hurling large heavy objects in its vicinity. So we proceeded to cover Naomi's one window. She graciously agreed to this later and moved to a room with some light in it. After we covered the window, we went about anchoring the "backboard" to the window frame. We started by using square head screws and the electric drill. This worked just fine until the drill petered out halfway through the second screw. Since the screw was square headed, we couldn't finish driving it in with a hand-held screw driver. We managed to get the screw most of the rest of the way in by turning the entire drill with our hands. That done, we quickly abandoned the screw method and settled for pounding nails instead. Afte the hoop was finally up, the real fun started. It wasn't long before a league was organized and four teams were drawn up. A few nights later, we held the first (annual?) GGI baskeetball tourney, consisting of two playoffs and the final championship game. The playoffs were intense, and when the dust settled (literally), two teams were left to duel. The championship game pitted the breakfast sausages against another team who's name I can't remember (anyone out there remember?). Henry played strongly, exhibiting his usual immpecable shooting skill. He was asissted by Meghan, the surprise powerhouse of the league. In the end, the breakfast Sausages came out triumphant, and won the abominable, GGI basketball trophy/statue/art/trash collection thingamajig.

Any more stories? Mail them to me, and I'll put them up. If you have picture to accompany the stories, mail them via snail mail to me at:

William Chang

S.U. Box 1611

Williams College

Williamstown, MA 01267