Go Bucs!

There's quite a nice little park/commons area adjacent to the marina and below the KCYC clubhouse (available for rent!) here in Kingston, and when we went out for our daily constitutional this morning we saw folks out setting up tents and hay bales and propane heaters, which piqued our curiosity. From the colors of the decor and other banners we saw up all over town, we quickly deduced the function for which the preparations were intended: Kingston High School Homecoming Week!

So about 1800 we hear the parade processional arriving, accompanied by the high school marching band. I was just getting out of the shower (free showers at Port of Kingston! Up to this point, I have been referring to good showers as "Buck fifty showers" since that's about what it might cost to have one at Shilshole, but from here on out I will simply call them "Kingston showers") and Mandy was in the middle of fixing dinner, but I was thrown into a paroxysm of excitement at the prospects of free entertainment, so I dried off and forced her to finish quickly so we could shovel it down and get up to the party.

The park was full of screaming teenagers chasing one another around with cream pies; the big attraction of the event, other than the hot dogs, was apparently the opportunity to splatter other people with cream pies, sometimes in an organized and carefully measured manner, sometimes simply opportunistically. I got caught in a drive-by and caught some over-splatter on my back but it was merely a flesh wound. I threatened to put Mandy's name on the list for those being drug off to the target booth, but probably no one would have been very excited about throwing pies at her. She seemed confused by the whole thing... her high school apparently had pretty sedate homecoming events. I don't even remember what they were like at my high school, but the whole thing reminded me quite a bit of the hubbub surrounding homecoming at the high school in the small town where I lived when I was younger, Lake Roosevelt High School. The similarity was no doubt enhanced by the similarity of the mascots; the Kingston Buccaneers and the Lake Roosevelt Raiders (who are a fairly typical 0-5 so far this season, I see; they might have a shot against Brewster in a couple of weeks, the winner avoiding the ignominy of coming in dead last in the Caribou Trail league). I don't have any really distinct memories but the whole thing seemed vaguely nostalgic for that reason.

Anyway, we didn't stick around long but I'm still enjoying the band playing from down here on the boat.

Go Bucs!