Wednesday, June 06, 2007

Club Sweet Home

The big news at the club is that They are looking for new digs, very fancy digs in fact, announced at last night's meeting. It is a grand vision, but one hard to come to grips with. Inexplicably sparkling on the horizon - like flying across the desert and seeing Las Vegas rising in the distance. The problem is, when you actually get to Las Vegas and see it up close, it is overwhelming and a little terrifying.

Full disclosure: I get comfortable with things. I get attached to otherwise mundane things with a fierce sentimentality. I don't like change. While I have not yet become attached to my current club like I did to Tacoma, still the idea of such sudden transition leaves me a little shaky. Keep my (mostly irrational) "quirks" in mind during the following.

A world-class facility - it doesn't seem unreasonable given Charlotte's steroidal growth rate - but such a facility demands an income stream to maintain it. That means lots of fencers. Here lies the source of my greatest apprehension. One of the reasons that I enjoy fencing so much is that - unlike fitness clubs, soccer fields, and the like - practice time does not resemble a droning beehive where one earnest little bug cannot be identified from the next. During the meeting, grand tales of other national clubs were told where fencers wait in line to fence at one of sixteen strips for hours every night. And that's what we want to emulate? Alas...

In all sense I realize that even if this level of success (for success it would be for the owner of the club) could be achieved, it is probably a couple years down the road and that my rationality and common sense could grow along with the fencing population. Just spare me a moment for consternation - that is one thing I am comfortable with.

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