Park It

Anatomy of a November afternoon in Jackson Ward.

Sunny and 77 degrees with crunchy leaves underfoot.

Under the gazebo in Abner Clay Park are two Gamelan musicians, shoeless and sitting cross-legged facing each other, tapping out Balinese melodies.

The music travels in all directions

On the tennis courts are bike polo players participating in the annual RVA Turducken tournament.

I know because it's that time of year.

Plus I made a couple of side dishes for the first-ever Turducken post-match feast a few years back.

We take up positions at the chain link fence where we have an ideal overlook point to take in the offensive and defensive moves of the two teams in front of us.

The lean purple-shirted guys in jorts and gloves are clearly the better players and tighter team.

The team in black shirts look like they do something besides ride their bikes. Something nerd-like.

Turns out they're the Washington team and they're struggling.

It makes me like them more.

Before long, the purple shirts are talking trash about the other team and I'm close enough to their goal to hear.

"They're no good. This is boring," one said as he pedaled around his teammate.

Later, when one of the black team falls and clearly hurts his hand, a purple shirt makes an unkind comment about the guy's worth.

Then a heckler yells a derogatory comment about the guy who'd fallen.

Bad form, if you ask me.

As I turn to go, a guy on a bike with a polo mallet is right there so I ask him for the skinny on the tournament.

Guys were there from Atlanta, Athens, Rochester, Seattle, Ontario and other places where the biking community is strong and interest in polo is keen

Purple team had one local and two guys from Lexington. They were known to be g.o.o.d.

We'd caught a good match, he seemed to say.

With my sports quota for the day satisfied, we ambled on down sunny Leigh Street admiring the late-blooming roses with me enjoying being bare-legged and feeling the warmth.

Coming up Clay, we see one of the Gamelan musicians carrying his instrument toward his house.

Just another neighbor enjoying this incredible day.

Just another November day in the Ward.