Battle on Hogback Mountain
When I was in about the eighth grade, some friend of mine and I demonstrated our research skills by heading to the Huntington Central Park Library to dig up an old Newsweek magazine and read an article about Paintball battles.
Well, I’ve looked for the opportunity to join such a fight ever since. You can’t play army and squash as many plastic toy soldiers as I have and not have some lingering desire to test your mettle on a battlefield (especially when a nasty bruise is the worst consequence you’re likely to face).
After all these years, that moment came for me today on Hogback Mountain (about 25 miles west of DC). A group of my former Senate colleagues set up a day-long session for us, and I figured it was an appropriate way to commemorate MLK’s non-violent teachings on his day.
Saturday it snowed, but by Sunday the thaw was underway. So today found Hogback mountain a snowy/muddy battlefield. There was more rain this morning, adding to the muck, but the sun came out and we battled under clear skies.
The gun, semi-automatic powered by C02 can hold about 50 marble-sized paintballs and pump them out just as fast as you can squeeze the trigger. The balls don’t really have paint, just a water-soluble food coloring. We were shooting Yellow today, so hits exploded in a sticky yellow mess. That’s if they break, which they don’t always do. So even if you’ve been hit, you don’t admit death unless you’re bleeding yellow because bounces are just flesh wounds, not death. Not that bounces don’t bruise, but you can keep fighting. Don’t bother too much with aiming, as these things fly all over the place.
The place we played had about a dozen different battlefields on which my Blue Team repeatedly fragged those pussies on the Red Team. My finest hour came in a fight at ‘The Castle’, a field on which both teams are trying to capture the same flag hung in the center tower, and deliver it to the opposing teams side. In our first fight here I did the honors, surviving a long firefight, charging to the tower under withering fire, and then hauling ass to the other teams side (with a nice fall on my ass on the way). It was great.
We played from 10am until 5pm with a brief break for a lunch of hot dogs and chips. As you might imagine, we were soaked through, caked with mud, and splattered with paint by days end. Two of the smartest things I did were wear long johns, and bring extra shoes. The muddy boots and jeans went in a bag in the trunk, and I drove home in my steaming long johns and sneakers.
Of course, these days you can’t have an experience like I had today and not think about our soldiers who are fighting where the bullets don’t bounce. God bless ’em.
Anyway, it was a great time. Take the chance to play it you get it, I hope to again. And next time you’re all in Washington we’ll skip the monuments and head to Hogback Mountain.
I’m not sure who was more startled, me or the cat. But as I stood there holding the hood up, we stared at each other for a moment and shared a simultaneous, ‘Holy-shit’, type of moment. It wasn’t a kitten, but not full-grown either, just an orange and white teenage cat. The cat acted more quickly than I could, wisely taking the opportunity to give up its seat on top of the battery and get the hell out from under the hood. It bolted into a storm drain underneath the gas station driveway.
Things were looking grim for the Purple People Eaters tonight as they took a soggy field for a mid-week makeup game. Never a dominating team, the PPE make up with enthusiasm what they lack in precision. Not ones to get down about it, their season has been a string of often painful losses, but they’re having fun and that’s what really matters, right?
And finally, it happened. Breaking away at mid-field, he found no other player except the goalie between him and the big bucks. The sideline is on their feet, ready to congratulate another ‘almost’, but this time, instead of sending a roller just outside of the post, he lofts the ball in the air, over the goalies head, and dead center into the net with an authoritative kick that was destined to hit.
CaseyDorin Internet Productions was awarded 
CaseyDorin Internet Productions was awarded the Golden Dot award for Innovation at the 
Not counting work as a paper boy, my first real job was at Chuck E. Cheese’s Pizza Time Theater in Huntington Beach, California. I was on the brink of turning 16 when I obtained the necessary work permit from my High School and took a job in Chuck’s kitchen making pizza.
The pizza was actually pretty good. Toppings for each one were weighed to ensure just the right about was used. And while taking laps in the rotating oven, the pizzas would be monitored for any overly large cheese bubbles which were promptly popped with a poker if they grew too large. And although it dominated, pizza wasn’t the only thing on the menu. I had my first French Dip sandwich courtesy of Chuck.
On weekends the quiet life of a pizza builder could be turned upside down by a party host looking to put somebody in the rat suit. I often found myself yanked off the pizza line and told to suit up, to become Chuck E. Cheese and visit a birthday party and wander the game room for a spell. On busy days, when partys were stacked up, I’d just stay in the rat suit, cooling off in the walk-in freezer, sucking a lemon slice, and taking stock of what the experience was teaching me.
