April 14, 2020. Madison, Mississippi. Handball.

When we were first married, Ken and I lived over a hardware store, on the corner of Bleeker and Howard Streets in Toronto. The neighborhood was not fancy but it was affordable and convenient. Right across the street was a large brick wall with no windows. Young men congregated there and played handball. They were good players. The game consisted of batting the ball against the wall with your hand and trying to make your opponent miss their shot. They played for hours. They never bothered us except their vocabulary was limited to swear words. Until last evening, I had never seen team Handball. It is actually an Olympic sport. I always watch TV when I eat meals so last evening, with nothing else to find, I turned to the Olympic channel and discovered handball. Actually it was the world championship of handball, played in January. The game was astonishing. It has nothing like the handball played by those young men in Toronto. Seven men are on each side. The ball is thrown from one player to the other and to score you throw into the goal. Unfortunately, the commentator gave me no hints about the rules so I was forced to figure out the rules and strategy myself. The goal looks to be about the same size as a hockey goal. The goalie has no pads so mostly the ball goes into the net. At first I figured that any team could score every time they had the ball but that was not the case. But the scores are high. The game I watched ended up with a 22 to 20 score. Tonight I see another game coming on and I hope to figure out more rules. I was pleased to find another team sport that I knew nothing about. For a few days I will be an expert on Handball, a game I knew nothing about. I am always astonished on how little I actually know. But now at least I know something about Handball.