It was a nice way to end this year’s high school sports season, watching a spontaneous celebration erupt at the end of the Class AAA-AAAAA state track and field meet.
The participating athletes took it upon themselves to create a human tunnel for each of the teams that received trophies. It was a fitting end to another high school season in which I saw young athletes work hard and strive to achieve their goals. Watching that parade of smiling faces reminded me of just how much fun sports can be, despite the defeats, the hype and the expectations we heap onto the shoulders of these young men and women.
Sports should be a celebration of life and that’s what it was.
As one of my colleagues who covers sports for another newspaper said, “This is fun.”
On the drive back from Albuquerque, it was a time to reflect on this past year, my eighth covering high school sports for the SUN. It’s the end of another season of hard work as I scramble to cover what I can. Like every year, there are myriad things I wish I had done, but there’s also the realization that I actually ended up accomplishing a lot.
I don’t think I’ve ever written a story that I felt was perfect, but you always put the finished stories behind you and move on to the next one.
There are times when I sometimes wish I could just sit and watch the hummingbirds come to our feeders. In the mornings, when I hear the Canada geese cackle as they take off from the beaver ponds behind our house, it makes me want to hop in my car and take off to some favorite hideaway. Checking the Internet, I find out that some of my favorite fishing lakes in Colorado are free of ice and the fish are likely biting well. I remember the big brookies from Shaw Lake and the fat rainbows at Road Canyon Reservoir of years past.
The rivers have been swollen with runoff lately, but they were starting to drop Monday. By mid-June the Chama River should be running low and clear enough to fish below Heron Dam, and that will be a prime time to catch larger-than-average trout. I may try to hit Hopewell Lake soon and later this summer the Rio Grande will provide easy access to fishing for trout and smallmouth bass.
I’ve been able to fish Abiquiú Lake just once so far this spring, but that trip yielded a beautiful smallmouth bass of 17 inches. When I caught him he had a crawdad stuffed in his throat, claws sticking out, and he still decided to swallow my nightcrawler.
Despite the loss of some fruit in the frosts of April and late March, there’s still sweet cherries left on the trees. Some of the peach trees have full crops and the prune plums have fruit. The apple trees appear ready to bear a bumper crop.
It won’t be long before the mulberries are ripe and I’ll make that first mulberry pie of the year. That’s always something to look forward to.
It promises to be a good summer.