Philly Cheese Steak

Ball
Originally uploaded by thegreatplotnik.

Black haired, gray haired, brown haired, bald headed. Old, young. Fat, skinny. The Great Plotnik wishes it would stop raining so he could play ball again with his guys. It has rained every Saturday since before Christmas.

The man in the red shorts is named Rico. He runs the Philly Cheese Steak place near Kaiser, so last Friday TGP stopped in to see him. It was lunchtime and the place was packed so Rico was taking a shift at the grill.

"Hey," Rico said when he saw Plotnik. "Almost didn't recognize you in civilian clothes."

"Hey, Rico," Plot said. "You gonna come down tomorrow morning?"

"If it stops raining," Rico said. "Man, I miss our game. You hongry?"

"Yeah, but no, thanks, Rico," said Plotnik, thinking about the two weeks of shortened life expectancy each Philly Cheese Steak guarantees.

"I miss our game, too," he said. But it didn't stop raining. So no game. And Plotnik was still hongry.

But it cleared up yesterday. So Plotnik took the P-cycle up to Diamond Heights and found a small game in the newly renovated Haas Park at the top of the hill. It felt great to run around -- but it's still not Saturday Morning at James Plotz Middle School, still not Rico and Sherlock and Bobby and Sam and Tony, still not Skip and Mike and Pete and Dave and Greg and Ron.

And the next two Saturdays Plot will be in Guatemala. It better not rain.