Little League Congratulations

A very belated congratulations to the Conejo Valley Little League kids who amazingly won the US Title over a very good, highly competitive team from Texas.

Baseball is a game of little things, and Curacao simply found a way to get things going in the first inning and maintained from there. For all their experience (they've been in the last two LLWS), the kids from Curacao had a heck of a lot more riding on this than any of the kids from the Conejo Valley.

For those who know my sea stories, my only visit there was the one where it was announced that we were moored, a bunch of people fell down (all ahead 1/3 into a bulkhead can be traumatic if you don't expect it) and then an all stop was requested. Oops.

Curacao was my first gambling resort... I spent my $5 and that was that (outside of silly stuff like office football and basketball pools).

Curacao was also the first place that I ever experienced dramatic, organized poverty. The people who served the wealthy lived in what most Americans would consider squalor (or worse). Yet, being midway up the thousands of tin huts on a hillside was considered middle class. Twenty three years later, I still don't quite understand the many people I met and interacted with, although I do know that these folks worked hard and expected little. Seeing this made it easier to accept the really crazy lives of peoples we encountered in Africa and Asia, but did nothing to make it more easily acceptable.

To the children on both sides, you have my congratulations and best wishes.