The clouds are quickly coming back…

First time ever flying into Jacksonville. I have been there a couple of times but never flown in. It is rare these days for me – after 20 years of flying in US – to say that I am visiting a particular airport in this country for the first time. Jacksonville will be the 103rd airport I have ever flown into. 58th in US. Why I keep track of these things, I do not know. Some more statistics I keep track of – how many countries I have visited (30), how many countries I have run in (11) and such… Do you have any such statistic that you keep track of?

Thanks to Midwest-sized hospitality from my good old friend Dann and his team in St. Louis – Vince, Debbie and Scott and the rest, I saw my first full (ice)hockey game of my life. Best seats in the stadium. We had the two teams and the commentators on either side of the plexiglass. Right on the center line. And on the ice. And I mean right on the ice. I was one plexiglass away from pronouncing “boss, it was blown to smithereens” as “boff, ith waf fluh fo ffithereenf” (Tintin aficionados, no doubt recollect the villain Alan’s talk after his teeth got blown out 🙂 )

I had no idea about the rules of hockey. As it is, whenever somebody says hockey, I think of the hockey I used to play in India – which is called field hockey here, I think. I had no idea growing up what ice hockey is all about. Ice is something you got out of a refrigerator and on very hot days (which means any day in India), you put it in Dipy’s Squash and enjoyed the drink. That you can cover a whole darned field with ice was beyond my wildest level of imagination of refrigeration capacity.

My brush with a field filled with ice in Dallas, wasn’t a particularly pleasant one. There is nothing more frustrating than being an adult and having to go thru the same process you went thru when you were eight months old – trying to stand up and falling down. In front of our friends. Repeatedly.

And then I had heard about the old saying – “I went to see a fight and a hockey game broke out”!!

So, you will pardon me for not knowing what to expect. I have to say I had the best time of my life. Learnt a lot of rules. BTW, whose great idea was to put 3 periods in a game? It is like “we are not as small as soccer but not as big as football either”!!! I also learnt three key things:

1. Plexiglass is very important 🙂
2. Concept of fun while playing can be highly relative concept 🙂
3. Midwestern hospitality rules !!

Above all, I know have some awesome friends in St. Louis.