The first of June is always reminds me of high school, probably due to it being the beginning of what was summer break. The one thing I always spend some time remembering is when Jasper Baseball won three state finals back-to-back. Why should we here in Greencastle worry about such a thing? Terry Gobert, Jasper's coach, is a Greencastle native.

Now for most this is very old news, given that the first State game they won against Carmel was in 1996, the summer before I started my freshman year at Greencastle High School. However, the reason the state finals meant so much to me was because I have a great amount of friends from Jasper, and it meant they would come up to Greencastle and stay with me, or we would all go to Indy and stay in a hotel together.

Before one of the games, we all went to the go-kart place in Avon on 36. We had all just turned 16 so we could finally go on the slick-track. After running over each other for about eight minutes on that, we were jaded and decided the regular track was more fun.

After heading over to the regular track, we all chose our cars. I knew which of the go-karts were which, because some go faster than others, so I grabbed one of the quicker ones. My friend Greg was boasting but ended up in a slower car. At one point he tried to pass me. We were bumping the whole time but when I went to bump him as he passed me I ended up doing a P.I.T. maneuver on him and my car was put on near permanent idle by the patrons. However, Greg was facing the wrong direction and couldn't get turned around so I felt good about myself.

After the go-karts, we decided to play putt-putt. I have never been terribly clever when it comes to putt-putt. I tend to get caught up in daydreams of waterfalls, windmills and colorful balls and forget I'm trying to win. Or the opposite, I start taking myself too seriously and forget to have fun. Whatever the case, this game was no different and one hole has a shelter behind it. I had gotten so frustrated that I swung the club to hit my ball. The ball hit the brick boundaries of the hole, flew back over my head and landed on top of the shelter roof.

At that same time, another worker was in the shelter and grabbed my ball.

"I think you lost this," he said.

I took it with a smile, realizing I had about died from putt-putt ball death. At least the ball was green and not blue. They say blue ball death is quite horrific.

Once we finished at the Avon place, we headed to the game to watch Jasper, and coach Gobert win another state title. That was also the year I met my first girlfriend/summer romance. I actually met her at the game, however, we didn't really "meet" for another couple weeks when I went down to Jasper and cried in the backyard of my friend's house until she came out and carried me inside. Oh the pangs of young love and everclear.