On 11/11/2019 6:14 PM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 11/11/2019 6:28 PM, John B. Slocomb wrote:
On Mon, 11 Nov 2019 15:51:56 -0500, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 11/11/2019 12:32 PM, Sir Ridesalot wrote:


How about those who have green lawns in a desert? What a
waste of the most precious commodity a desert has = water.

Agreed!

I've spent considerable time wondering why we have lawns
at all. I mean,
what a weird thing - whack down all the native
vegetation, clear it out,
plant something that really doesn't want to grow here,
spend hours (or
hire someone) to chop it to a socially approved height,
remove or poison
anything else that might want to grow there, pay for
water and chemicals...

The answers I've found are more complex than one might
think, probably
going back to eastern Africa.


But how else can one play croquet? Or Bowls? Which was
apparently
played as far back as the Middle Ages.

Around here, with a large number of Italian descent, "bowls"
is called Bocce. The target ball is called the "Pauline," at
least in our family. (I don't know if that's capitalized or
not.)

But there's a high degree of randomness in the play. None of
the siblings have a lawn that's the least bit smooth, and
bounces and deflections are wildly erratic. Body english
isn't nearly enough to get the ball to go where you want.
"Magic words" are necessary pretty often - usually, after a
miss. ;-)



Bocce makes more sense after the second glass of grappa.

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971