Subject: Ro-Cham-Stories

From: parinell@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (James C Parinella)

Date: 1995/05/18

Newsgroups: rec.sport.disc

I was thinking of labelling this Tip#6, how to use fire in rochambeau, but decided against it.

We had fire twice recently. For the rocham impaired, fire beats everything, but you are only permitted to use it once in your life. At our first tournament, we were crowding the hot tub in the local hotel, with players from several teams including Chicago. The idea came up for Ro-cham-do a gun underwater in the hot tub. Somehow, the Chicago boys all managed to avoid losing, and it came down to Alex and Bim. Bim really didn't want to do it, and knew Alex wouldn't really mind doing it himself, so Bim used up his fire and made Alex go down (under water to do the gun, of course). He didn't really mind using it, since he figured his rocham life was pretty limited anyway, and he wouldn't have too many opportunities to use it, so what the hey.

The other came up in our other tournament. We had 8 guys, and after our first game we decided that we needed a case of beer to make it through Saturday. We all pitched in and did a Ro-Cham-Beer run. It came down to three members of the Tea Party (me, Dennis, Alex). We're of course lamenting how we didn't think that everyone else was that stupid to throw the throws they threw, which is why we were the only ones left. I decide to start concentrating, and naturally win the next throw to leave those two head-to-head. As far as everybody is concerned, it's a win-win situation. We get beer, and we get to see one of those two lose. You're thinking, "But then one of them wins, too", but even still, they're only 7th out of 8, so it's OK. So Alex throws scissors (won't he ever learn?) and Dennis extends his hand sideways, sort of paper like, but begins to wiggle his fingers at some point claiming it was fire. Most of the crowd seemed to think it was a poor effort to cheat, which it probably was, knowing Dennis, but an argument ensued. After several minutes of weak arguments on both sides, the throw was declared null and void, neither could throw fire, and Dennis' right to throw fire in the future was preserved. Well, Alex managed to win, so Dennis took his typical hour and a half to find a beer place and got back just in time for our third game of the day.

In his absence, another funny story occurred. We were playing some sort of clam/poach defense, and as often happens, once a breaking pass happens, the defense can't catch up. Since we were without a sub, saving energy became even more important, so on one point after an upfield pass, the front four on defense simply gave up and went to the line for the next point. Three of us still believed in playing defense, so we tried to stop them. The first thrower couldn't get off a pass during a 4 on 1 fast break, and the disc swung around twice. At this point, the new thrower just sees a mess of people running around and decides his team needs to organize right then, so he calls time out. Only then does he turn around and look back to see 4 opponents standing on the opposite goal line while his full team was cutting in the end zone. Questioned about it afterwards, he said, "Well, I knew SOMEBODY was back there, but I figured at least some of them were our team."

Jim "We need more human interest stories besides "My first hole-in-one", not that there's anything wrong with that" Parinella