Entries this day: Construct-O-Con butts_up_description

Construct O Con

Sunday 18 October 1998

What a wild weekend! To give you a visual of sorts, let me say that on Friday, I shaved my head. I shaved it again Saturday morning and again this afternoon.

The bulk of this weekend I spent at First UU Church of Houston with youth for Construct-O-Con, where Houston area youth gathered to design a much larger conference that will be held at my church in January.

Friday afternoon before the thing, Jason Fricke called and was all, "yo, you wanna go skating?" Yes.

So he arrived at my house like around 3pm and we drove over to Hermann Park area to skate. Quite a duo we must have looked.. He was on skateboard, with shorts and white tanktop and no pads at all. I was on inline skates, fully padded, with fat knee pads, wrist guards and helmet.

We mostly skated around a few steps and a couple of ramps (not designed for skating, but part of the Miller Outdoor Theater). It was just a beatiful fall day and we just experienced our own playfulness. We hardly interacted more than, "oh cool did you see that?" or "watch this..." before trying a new skill.

We expanded our boundaries and I skated, jumping from bench to bench, along a sidewalk toward the Houston Zoo. By the duck lake we waved HI to the few people riding the little train around the park.. (You know, I've never ridden that train...)

Oh crap.. as I'm typing I just realized I'm not writing a skating adventure; I'm writing about the whole weekend lock-in!

Okay, I got a call from Christina on my cell phone and she asked for our help with the food. We had just been en route to The Medical Center (to play around more steps and stuff) when she called. We got back to the car and I got my skates and pads off just as it started to rain. Perfect timing!

To Christina's work we picked up a big pile of food, including a tub of sugar cookie dough. Jason and I taste tested it a few times to make sure it was good. It was good. Yup, still good. We were laffin', squirting dough between our teeth and having a great time!

Then zipped to the church, dropped off the food, then to my house and got cleaned up. (We each played pinball on my computer while the other showered) To the church we arrived fashionably late and the whole group played wall ball most of the night. "Wall ball" is essentially the same game that I played in high school called "butts up." (*)

As a group we joined the CUUPS (something UU Pagan Society) group for their worship. It focused on Samhain, "that time of the year when the veil between the physical world and the after world is the thinnest" and we all were given the opportunity to talk about people we know who have died. The sharing was a bit heavier than I expected, and though I personally felt fine afterward, some of the youth had cried about some of the deaths.. so I thought a "decompression session" would be appropriate after the worship.

So we talked a bit (without the CUUPS) in our own group where I hoped the youth would feel safer to get out anything they needed to. I encouraged a couple who needed it to experience their sadness or anger or whatever, but to certainly not bottle up those emotions!

I think it went well.

I was up until about 3 that night; I didn't watch whatever movie they watched until 5am.

Woke up, zipped home to get my cell phone charger, and used the opporunity to shower and again. I used that opportunity to shave my head again; my hair felt like sandpaper after almost 24 hours of growth.

Wall ball wall ball wall ball until lunch then more more more until other youth arrived and then at about 5pm we started our rally planning.

There were several new youth who had never been to a rally, so I gave an overview of them and had the experienced youth give their versions. Then we figured out who would organize what for our rally in January.

The theme will be "Fricke's Fiesta Con Queso" (for any of you YRUUers out there, this is your sneak preview) and the whole thing will be centered around Salsa, queso, and anything spanish we can think of. We'll even look into getting sponsorship from Taco Cabana.

Two hours later we had the whole overview complete, with various youth volunteers to be in charge of the various aspects, and me as overview coordinator type person. kT took notes.

butts up description

(*) Butts Up requires a large wall against which to throw a small bouncy ball, ground on which to run, a bouncy ball to throw and at least 5 players. For the ball, a tennis ball or racquet ball is good. A baseball or bowling ball is bad. A superball is a maybe, depending on the group and the area.

The goal is to not get hit by the ball. Any player throws the ball at the wall usually as hard as possible. Any player, even the same player tries to catch the ball and throw it at the wall. Simple.

Chaos ensues when a player drops the ball while trying to catch it, or is simply hit by the ball and doesn't catch it. That player must run and touch the wall before another player throws the ball and hits them with it. Often, in a scramble to hit the other player, the second player will drop the ball, and have to run for the wall.

If someone hits the player who dropped the ball before that player touches the wall, it's time for "butts up"

Each player who dropped the ball and was subsequently hit by another player has to crouch down at the wall with their butt in the air to be pegged again by the player who got them, and/or by each other player in the game!

So that is Butts Up. We were playing Wall Ball which is different in that the player who dropped has to touch the wall before another player hits the wall with the ball. And the butt in air aspect is not there - it's simply spread eagle and a light to medium toss by a single player as "punshiment"