The greatest joys

One is torn when it comes to deciding which is the greatest joy: seeing the expression on debaters' faces when they win their first trophy, or seeing the expression on parents' faces when you hand them their first ballot and tell them they have to go judge. It's a close call. Grown men and women, who have no compunctions about telling their teenaged children how to live every aspect of their lives from dawn till dusk till dawn again, somehow feel inadequate to evaluate teenagers' opinions on society. I still recall my earliest judging experiences. Now, granted, I may be an aberration, but I got a kick out of it right from the beginning. Sure, timing was tough until you got the hang of it, and flowing wants experience, but listening to what was said and evaluating who had the better argument was absolutely no big deal, especially at the novice level, where we dump most parents in their early going.

Another great joy is listening to your new surround-sound setup. To inaugurate it last night I watched ONCE UPON A TIME IN MEXICO. Not for any particular reason, other than being a big JD fan. Anyhow, most of the movie consists of JD whispering to AB, or JD or AB whispering to someone else, punctuated by serious gunplay. The whispering was not enhanced by surroundage, since that all came from the front, but when the bullets were flying, there was enough bazzooom in the room to knock me off my chair and then some. Tonight I'll spend some time figuring out how to lower the volume of the subwoofer.

I'm giving up on the present wave file. If these people can't identify a line from The Matrix, they're beyond me. I thought that one was a gimme. Live and learn.

Anyhow, the Bronx was small but profitable. Junior R earned a 3rd-place speaker award, quite an accomplishment. And in the MHL, Nicole came in 3rd, which is an excellent way to begin one's career. The other novices all seemed to enjoy themselves, which frankly is the real reason we have this beginners' event, to get the old feet wet and to feel out the activity in the trenches. MHLs are always a tough animal. You have to be good to win trophies, but not winning trophies is not a measure of not being good. There are so many factors involved, chief among them being the judging. In a three-round tournament, if you lose one round, you're out of it. Which means any one judge can pull the rug out from under you. Given that most of the judges are varsity debaters, a group I rank quite low in the overall hierarchy, well, you get the picture.