Tuesday Night Volleyball

I don't know why I play volleyball. I'm really not that great at it. I've been playing in a winter volleyball league off and on for 25 years. More on than off. I took time out when I was extremely pregnant and my center of gravity made it perilous to take part in athletic activities that require moving about. Which ruled out volleyball. Then I took two years off when most of the members of the team I had been playing on decided to retire and take part in more dignified activities. Like going directly to the bar and drink beer without wasting any time getting a little exercise. I have played for teams that had silly names. Like the Downtown Dames. Our shirts had a little cartoon of a very busty big-haired blonde balancing a volleyball in one upraised hand and a mug of beer in the other. I also played for the local JayceeEttes team, and a team called The Core which was sponsored by the downtown, or "core area" merchants. Our shirts had a large screenprinted apple core on the front. I currently play for a team called the Adversaries. My friend LeeAnn's law office sponsors us. She loves to play and says her firm can use the tax deduction for paying our park & rec fee. Yes, I do realize it's Monday night and the title says Tuesday. We normally play on Tuesday nights but there are more teams than court spaces and time slots so a couple of matches get bumped to Monday each week. Like I said, I'm no star player, but I do enjoy it. I have a pretty reliable serve and at least once during each game I make some play or move that astonishes me and my fellow teammates. Then I lapse back into bumping and setting with no apparent sense of direction. This may be my last year, I haven't really decided yet. I will miss playing if I do retire. And last winter for a couple of months I was playing really well like I did twenty years ago. I think it was my new shoes and the magic has since worn off. I think what I like best about volleyball is the interesting and diverse group of women I've come to know over time. It gets me out of the house one night a week during the gloomy months of winter when I would otherwise hibernate. And the beer and comraderie make losing, as we often do, a little easier to bear.