My daughter called home from college a few weeks ago and confessed that she had fallen back in with the wrong crowd. The girls she was hanging with were not only tough and prone to sudden acts of violence, a bunch of them were hookers. Before you get the wrong idea, let me clarify: My daughter was once again playing rugby (a sport in which a key position involves "hooking" the ball).
It was hard for me to know how to respond. I believe I resorted to one of those high-pitched maternal "Mmmmms" that roughly translates as, "I know I don't have any say in this, but that isn't going to stop me from chewing off the inside of my mouth."
I had hoped that my older daughter had given up this violent sport, in which kneeing your opponent in the ribs is applauded by your teammates and rarely called by the referee. Last fall, my husband and I had been delighted to ship the child off to study in Denmark, a country where the national sport is making really nice pastries. We thought we had successfully refocused her attention.
But no, she admitted on the phone, once back on campus this spring she had lapsed into old habits. She was calling, in fact, to invite us to watch her play in a rugby tournament called "The Beast of the East."
Somehow, this wasn't what I had always envisioned for my daughter.
My husband and I decided to take her up on the tournament invitation for two reasons. First, we were flattered. Our daughter rarely wants to be in the same state as us, never mind on the same rugby field. Second, rugby is a sport in which they actually keep the ambulance parked by the playing field, and my kids have always liked me to accompany them on ambulance rides. They feel it's best if I panic someplace where they can keep an eye on me.
As it turned out, our biggest parental trauma for "The Beast of the East" tournament was not an ambulance ride, but rather the five-minute shuttle-bus ride my husband and I took from the parking lot to the playing field. In riding that bus, we learned that rugby breeds a different kind of parent.
As we took our seats, the man in front of us was already engaged in conversation with a couple across the aisle. "And last year, my daughter tore her ACL so badly she needed surgery and six months of rehab," he concluded with what almost sounded like pride.
"Yeah, last month, our daughter had her second concussion," said the man across from him. "But it wasn't anywhere near as bad as the first one. She was only unconscious for two minutes."
His wife chimed in: "Her little sister is tougher. She's had two concussions and a broken nose." There was a murmur of admiration from the parents sitting within hearing distance.
"My daughter broke her septum," offered another mother.
"I didn't know you could break that!" said the first man in amazement.
"Yep, you can!" she bragged.
I leaned over and whispered to my husband, "Who ARE these people?"
"I don't know," he replied, "but if they want to be first to get off the bus, I say we let them."
After listening to the stories on that shuttle bus, watching the rugby match was a piece of cake. Our daughter managed to carry the ball a few times and pass it off to another player without ending up on the wrong side of a 20-person pig pile or — as far as we could tell — getting kneed in the ribs.
In fact, at "The Beast of the East" tournament, the spectators were in almost as much danger as the players. Watching from sidelines wedged between two rugby fields, I was nearly flattened by a group of male players tackling an opponent so energetically that their enthusiasm extended beyond the line markers. Now, there was a time when I wouldn't have minded a group of college-aged men falling all over me, but that day has long since passed. (Sadly, in fact, it passed without this ever happening.)
By the end of the afternoon, my husband and I left the tournament relatively content..Our daughter's head seemed to be intact — or, at least, no different than it has always been — and I had suffered only minor self-inflicted bite wounds to my fingernails and the inside of my mouth.
However, we decided to forego the shuttle bus ride and walked the three miles to the parking lot. As we had learned from our daughter, you've got to be careful what crowd you hang with.
nnn
Nancy Crochiere is a freelance writer and editor who tries to look at the vagaries of modern family life with humor. You can e-mail her in care of ndn@newburyportnews.com.
