GV Football - Game 10 vs Lower Merion

This week's game was supposed to be a big deal. Homecoming weekend. The last game of the regular season. Putting an exclamation point on a fourth straight Central League title.

The reality was less spectacular.

The Homecoming Parade pre-game was in a steady cold rain. The halftime performance by the band was canceled due to weather, and what amounted to a pep band of brass instruments was all that got to perform.

We won a lackluster game, 38-14, playing mostly backups in the rain to preserve our players for the playoffs to come.

For the season, we have outscored the opponents 489-118.

We ended the season 10-0, and 9-0 in the Central League, completing the 4-peat, winning the league title all 4 years of Grace's high school career.

Notwithstanding the rainy conclusion to the season, we will go into the playoffs seeded #1 in Division 1 of Class 6A, and will have a round 1 home game against Haverford, a Central League rival who we beat 55-14 just 3 weeks ago.

With some pandemic-induced modifications eliminating neutral site games, we will continue to have home games as long as we keep winning in the Division 1 playoffs. That's a very good thing, and theoretically means our first away game could be in December! But there's a lot of business to the care of first.

Go Jags!

Band Senior Recognition Day

With all of the other events going on related to football and other things, our band has started a new tradition within the last few years of doing a Senior Recognition Day event in the football stadium on an otherwise athletics-free time. This year that meant last Sunday from Noon to 1:00 pm.

The audience is mainly band parents, especially Senior band parents, but it is always nice that Coach Ricci of the football team encourages football players to come out and support the band. Coach Ricci along with maybe 30 of the football players were in attendance, which was nice. The show of support was appreciated, and this was also the only time that these football people would ever get to see the halftime routine that we play at all of their games...

The band plays a bunch of songs.

Band in the Arc, at the Ready

The Seniors are announced and come to the middle of the field with their parent/family escorts.

Grace's Beloved Clarinet Section (Grace with Mace)

Many individual pictures are taken.

Drum Majors at Ease (Grace at right)

The Seniors rejoin the band to perform their halftime routine.

Drum Majors Saluting (Grace at right)

Seniors come to the front and the band, minus the seniors, plays a song or two to the Seniors.

Drum Majors, goofing off

The event comes to a formal conclusion, and a great many other section and group pictures are taken.

I've helped run a couple of these for other Seniors and their parents/families. Today I was prevented from working the event and got to walk with my Senior. It was...special.

We are still fairly early in Grace's Senior year, but too many "lasts" are happening.

Autumn Impression #4

I paint the same sort of thing a lot.

Autumn Impression #4 (oils on canvas panel, 8 by 10)

But I learn from each attempt.

And I really need to find a place to take pictures of these works that don't always have the glare coming in my dining room window from the left...  Someday.

A Melancholy Return to Springfield

As noted earlier, Garnet Valley traveled to Springfield for a Central League football game Friday night, which Garnet Valley won 49-6 to improve to 9-0.

But this isn't about that...

New SHS, north end

As a Garnet Valley band parent, we sat in the visitors' bleachers. I am told that we were the first event for which the visitors' bleachers were open. Which was kinda cool...

New SHS, south end

They were very nice bleachers, looking out across the new SHS football stadium and home stands to the new high school building beyond, which is an amazing-looking modern building.

Which is where the surreal part begins.

In addition to being a GVHS parent, I am SHS class of 1984, younger brother to another SHS graduate.

Our Springfield High School was a building that used to exist on the plot of ground that is now an empty muddy hole behind the visitors' bleachers; cordoned off as a dangerous construction zone.

Build the new school on the old athletic fields. When done, knock the old school down and make new athletic fields. Makes perfect sense. The old high school was built in the 1950's, and would certainly have gotten to the point where trying to renovate it would have become impractical.

But that doesn't make it easier to accept the fact that they have knocked down my SHS, and left a muddy hole in the ground. Even the muddy hole will soon be gone, replaced by an expanse of flat grassy athletic fields.

The new facilities look great from the outside; sleek and modern. And there is a nice alleyway called Cougar Alley (?) between the home stadium stands and the new school building that includes a bunch of bronze plaques honoring past Springfield honorees in the areas of sports, the arts and teachers/administration.

It was...bittersweet...to read these plaques and recognize that I knew some of these people. Braden Montgomery, a favorite AP English teacher of mine who died too young. Tim McFadden class of 1982 who I was in trumpet section with and went on to play trumpet professionally. Teachers and students in band, orchestra, chorus, theater, the sciences, and on and on.

The names of teachers and administrators come flooding back (mostly high school, but some E T Richardson Middle School). Earl Knorr (principal). Luca Del Negro (band and orchestra). Richard Miller Jr (my middle school band director) and Richard Miller Sr (my first trumpet teacher). Dennis Bartow (biology). Joe Zumpano (physics and Moody Blues fan!). Helen Sebold (math and Scott's Hi-Q). Peg Lamb (Scott's Hi-Q and the best English teacher I never actually had for classes). Braden Montgomery. Mr Zappacosta. And others too numerous to mention. But...the ones I have mentioned played a huge role in my high school years...

And the friends and classmates... It was a long time ago. But not so long if you concentrate hard enough.

I'm not quite sure where this ramble is going, but it is nice that the travel trip to this particular football game stirred up so many memories.

And also bittersweet to accept the fact that these memories are tied to a physical place that is gone forever.

I suppose that this kind of thing is where the phrase "gone but not forgotten" comes from.

Indeed. Gone but not forgotten.

GV Football - Game 9 at Springfield

The 8-0 Garnet Valley Jaguars traveled to my alma mater, Springfield, for a Central League away game last night. The game was played in Springfield's new stadium, in the shadow of the new high school. It was surreal, but more on that later.

We got out to an early 6-0 lead, were tied at 6-6, and then pulled away to a 36-6 halftime lead. There were rushing TDs and passing TDs. A blocked punt. A kickoff flubbed by Springfield that we recovered. A 62 yard off tackle TD run by Shane Reynolds. A 40 yard TD pass to Sean Gallagher. Two more TDs each by Ryan Saunders and Joey Halloran. Lots of good stuff.

Grace in the Stands

Springfield was sloppy, and the best analogy I can make was that it was like a tennis match where all you really needed to do was keep the ball in play and wait for the opponent to make an unforced error. Of which there were plenty. And then you methodically take them apart piece by piece.

Conducting Stand Tunes

And sloppy brings me to another point. GV looked like a unified force, all players wearing exactly the same uniform, down to the pink cancer awareness socks worn by the players. Springfield, by contrast, wore nice uniforms of dark royal blue with gold (yellow) trim. But many of the players were wearing jerseys the equivalent of half shirts. And under these jerseys were t-shirts in blue, yellow, light gray, dark gray and white. Some had long sleeves. Some didn't. It kinda looked like a bunch of kids rolled in off the street and put the uniform jersey over top of whatever they happened to be wearing. Sloppy. Very sloppy.

This annoyed me probably way more than it should have, but in addition to being a parent of girls that are GVHS classes of 2017 and 2022, I am, and will always be, SHS class of 1984. When kids put on the SHS uniform, how they look reflects on themselves and on all of the SHS students that came before them. You represent many thousands of us. Including me and my classmates. Show a little pride in the blue and gold. Your band wore a uniform. Your football team wore a do-it-yourself kit. It's a small thing but it matters.

You can make a strong case that discipline and teamwork starts with the small details and works outward from there.

Anyway, I digress, as I often do (what with it being my blog and everything)...

Backups played most of the second half, which was a methodical exercise in grinding out rushing yards and winding down the clock. Final score GV 49-6.

We have now outscored opponents 451-104, or an average of 50-12 per game, and are now ranked #7 in the entire state of Pennsylvania, up 1 spot from last week, and 2 spots from the week before that. All this with pulling starters early and not running up scores just for the sake of it.

Max Busenkell's 21 passing TDs in a season (including 3 more today) extends his record, with the old all-time GV record being 17. Sean Gallagher's 11th receiving TD extends his all time season record, with the GV record formerly at 6. Ryan Saunders had two more rushing TDs, giving him 16 total TDs for the year (14 rushing, 2 receiving).

More importantly (!?!) the band has played Saints 64 times.

All of the football and band stuff aside, this return to Springfield was...surreal...bittersweet...or perhaps just weird. I was going to add my thoughts on this to the end of this game recap post, but that would not do it justice. Look for another post soon.

Autumn Impression #3

Happily playing with paint...

Autumn Impression #3 (oils on canvas panel, 8 by 10)

I'm trying to paint something every day. Practice makes better. I hope.

Angry Painting

Sometimes I sit down to paint something nice (why would you intend otherwise?), and the result is just bad. Being human, it's easy to get frustrated, or even downright angry. After the failed painting I posted earlier this evening (which has since been scribbled out and thrown in the trash), I had one of these angry moments.

I picked up a brush and used whatever I had on the palette to do this mess: (the Cowboys were beating the Patriots in overtime at the same time...this didn't help my mood).

Angry Painting, Take 1 (oils on canvas panel, 8 by 8)

Yuck. But maybe salvageable. So I cleaned up and defined what I guess might be a tree, and another little tree next to it.

Play Time, Take 2 (oils on canvas panel, 8 by 8)

That's a little better. Perhaps if we put these trees on a recognizable ground...

Play Time, Take 3 (oils on canvas panel, 8 by 8)

Better still. Maybe at this point, just add some darks to define the trees a little bit better, add some bright greens and yellows to define the ground...

Play Time, Take 4 (oils on canvas panel, 8 by 8)

So...a strange evening's painting. I set out intending to do one thing, and hated the result. Got frustrated, splashed some paint around, saw the possibilities in this impromptu mess, and ended up with a little painting that I like quite a bit. A takeaway from this for me to remember is that the final "Take 4" version of this little painting has some incredibly thick paint application, and it works really well...

Autumn Impression #2

Or...Listen to the voice in your head...

The below is a work in progress (?), and has become problematic in a number of ways. I wish I had a picture of what this looked like 30 minutes ago, because honestly, it looked much better back then.

30 minutes ago it was a simple straight-forward autumn sketch of a stream with a tree line in the background and a single focus tree in the left foreground.

Autumn Impression #2 (oils on canvas panel, 12 by 16)

I liked a lot of it for the most part. But maybe not the foreground tree. So a few more brushstrokes. Not helping. Stop. But I can probably fix this with a few more brush strokes. Or not. So maybe a few more. Or touch up the water. Or add more highlights to the distant tree line. And so on. And on. And on.

The funny thing is, with each step along the way, I knew that I should just stop, and that every time I added something I was going to get further away from where I wanted to be. But the urge to fix is hard to set aside.

So onward I went, and this sloppy mess is the result. Once you feel yourself sliding down that slippery slope, one part of you says stop, and one part of you says "but I know I can fix this."

Perhaps not.

After a downward spiral of good intentions, I ruined the foreground tree, then overworked the stream, and then ruined the distant tree line.

I do wish I had a picture of what this looked like a while ago, because it was actually pretty nice back then.

Now...I don't ever see myself going back to this after it dries. This is most likely destined for the trash, and deservedly so.

Live and learn. Maybe. Or maybe not...

GV Football - Game 8 vs Haverford

Game 8 was a Central League match with Haverford High coming to GV. Haverford came in 3-4 overall, and 2-4 in the Central League.

Grace on the Stand

When we were pushing band props into the stadium, I was thrilled to see our star running back, Shane Reynolds, back in uniform in warm ups for the first time since the opening minutes of game 2.

There was some extra energy in the crowd when Shane went out as one of the captains for the opening coin toss, and the fans were rewarded pretty quickly. Haverford took the opening kickoff, and after a short four or five play drive were forced to punt. The punt was a good one, and took a great bounce and roll, ending up at the GV 18 yard line.

On our first play, maybe two minutes into the game, Shane took a pitch on a wide sweep left, turned the corner, and put on the afterburners for an 82 yard touchdown run, running right through the only would-be tackler that came near him. Welcome back. The crowd erupted, and the band played Saints.

We cruised from there, with the score of 42-7 at the half, meaning a running clock for the second half. We played a variety of backups in the second half, and the game ended 55-14. Somewhere in there we had another 80 yard TD pass to Sean Gallagher who took a simple slant pass and outran the field. And a bunch of other highlights.

GV is now 8-0, and 7-0 in the Central League. We have outscored the opponents 402-98, or an average game score of 50-12. The band has played Saints roughly 57 times. Go Band!

We are now ranked 8th in the entire state of Pennsylvania. Someday Grace will hopefully appreciate how lucky she was to be a drum major for a band that played for the best football team her school has ever had. Shane Reynolds, our running back, is going to Navy to be a running back. Our quarterback, Max Busenkell, is going to Notre Dame to play lacrosse. Our wide receiver Sean Gallagher is going to Navy to play lacrosse. That doesn't happen often around here.

Next week we travel to my alma mater, Springfield. We just beat Haverford 55-14. Haverford beat Springfield last week 41-15. So.... Keep the focus. After Springfield we have a final homecoming home game against Lower Merion. After that, the playoffs.

Edits: After watching some of the YouTube broadcast of the game...  Max Busenkell threw 4 TDs to Sean Gallagher, all in the first half before sitting the second (for 29, 33, 80 and 45 yards). This gives Busenkell the all-time GV record of 18 passing TDs in a season, with two games to go. Gallagher now has the all-time record of 4 receiving TDs in a game (formerly 3 held by several players), and the all-time record for 10 receiving TDs in a season (formerly 6 held by several players). All with two games to go.

Autumn Impression #1

Now that we are getting into the fall season, I expect that I will be doing a lot of autumn sketches, with predominantly browns, reds, yellows and oranges.

Autumn Impression #1 (oils on canvas panel, 8 by 10)

So here's the first of what will likely be many. Many many.

I'm working on this off and on while watching the infuriating Eagles play the Buccaneers on Thursday night football.

Red and Yellow Fields

Here's the aforementioned palette-cleanser, using up the reds and yellows I had left on my palette before scraping it clean and moving on.

Red and Yellow Fields (oils on canvas panel, 8 by 8)

It's bright!!

Sunrise on the Point

I had some pinks and yellows and reds on my palette, so I painted this last night.

Sunrise on the Point (oils on canvas panel, 11 by 14)

I've painted a lot of water in the last year and a half, most of it badly. But I think I'm finally getting better at it. The main thing to remember, which has taken a very long time to get into my thick head, is that water rarely looks blue...

In looking at this now, the one thing I will want to touch up when it dries is to vary the height of the trees. They are too uniform now.

Next will likely be a small hyper-colorful palette cleanser before cleaning up and moving on to something else.

GV Football - Game 7 versus Radnor

So...Radnor isn't very good. And the game reflected this.

We got out to an early lead. And then more of a lead. And then the backups played. Early.

And then there was halftime, with the running clock in the second half  because we were up 35 points or more. And then the third and fourth string players got to get some snaps. They were calling names I had never heard before.

And then we won 41-0, and there were fireworks afterwards, courtesy of the church adjacent to the high school grounds. It was nice to get a shutout.

So we are now 7-0, and 6-0 in the Central League. We remain ranked 9th in the state of Pennsylvania. Go Jags! 

Water Gap Study

Before there was the larger attempt at this painting, there was this small 9 by 12 study.

Water Gap (oils on canvas panel, 9 by 12)

I continue to struggle with the results of a small, quick, spontaneous study versus a larger work. Larger isn't necessarily better....

Late Summer Sunrise

After working on something larger, coming back to a small canvas is always...I don't know...comforting?

Late Summer Sunrise (oils on canvas panel, 8 x 10)

This was primarily an exercise in trying to keep things loose and paying attention to my brushstrokes. I think this was more successful in the center "light" strip and the lower left, and less so in the upper and lower right.

As I look at this photo while writing the post, there are a few things that I don't like at all, and I may try to fix them. For something this small, I generally won't do that, but there are enough things about this that I like such that I feel like an attempted "fix" might be worthwhile.

Against my better judgement, I went back over this one (a half hour after the first pass).

Late Summer Sunrise, take 2...

I think it helped.

Delaware Water Gap, phase 1

I finished the first phase of the Innes-esque tonalist painting of the Delaware Water Gap.

Water Gap (oils on canvas, 18 by 24)

It needs some additional work, but the painting needs to dry completely first, so it will be a week or so before I get back to it.

Working on a larger canvas than I am used to is definitely a different experience. Yet another thing I could use more practice on...

A Painting to be

This is the basic sketch of a painting I hope to work on in the near future. 

Delaware Water Gap (canvas, 18 by 24)

It is a rough copy of a George Innes painting of the Delaware Water Gap, not that far from my home (world-distance speaking...). It will be a yellow and brown and orange tonalist painting. I hope...

Two Trees #3

Some paintings you like, some you don't. 

This one...there's nothing terribly bad about it. But there's also nothing particularly good. So...meh.

Two Trees #3 (oils on canvas panel, 11 by 14)

In its defense, it actually has a good bit of color and contrast, and probably looks better in person than in the picture. On the other hand, nothing jumps out at me when I look at it, so...meh.

But there it is, for better or for worse. Fair is fair.

Two Trees, Abstract #2

I keep telling myself I need to work on a more representational painting, and then I find myself painting a semi-abstract semi-impressionistic thing anyway.

The below is a tonalist landscape using about 4 or 5 colors (burnt umber, burnt sienna, a primary yellow, Charvin's "deep shell" and white, plus I think, a dab of orange).

Two Trees Abstract #2 (oils on canvas panel, 11 by 14)

So I guess, why fight it. Paint what needs to be painted.

I like this one.

And the Centurion primed linen panels from Creative Mark, a Jerry's Artarama higher-end house brand, are very nice to work with...

GV Football - Game 6 at Ridley

GVHS Football (and band of course) traveled to Ridley for a Central League away game last night to face the 5-0 Green Raiders. I've disliked Ridley since they used to beat up on Springfield back in the day. This game appeared to be the toughest game left on the schedule, with both teams at 5-0, albeit with Ridley having had a much easier schedule so far. We were strongly favored.

They gave us a scare for a while. We were incapable of defending the pass in the first half, and they have a good quarterback and some fast wide receivers. I can't remember the last time we gave up so many big plays, especially on desperation 4th downs.

After going up 21-7, we were down 34-28 at the half. Other than shooting ourselves in the foot with a few bad penalties and a turnover or two, we were moving the ball pretty much at will. Discussion among the band parents was that if we could just play a little defense, we'd be OK.

Fortunately, we made defensive adjustments at the half and ran away with it in the second. After allowing a short field goal on the first possession of the second half, we scored 37 unanswered points turning a close game into a rout, with a final score of 65-37. According to the Delco Times, we ran the ball for 412 yards at an average of 8 yards per carry.

Ridley has a rowdy and rude crowd who were feeling pretty good about the prospect of pulling off an upset, so it felt very satisfying to crush them in the end. Of all the places we have traveled to over the years, I don't think I've been to another place where the student section boos the opponents when introduced at the start of the game, boos them again when coming out after half time, and have students consistently saying rude things to you as you walk around the place as an opponent. Not a pleasant place to go. I won't miss it.

Oh well. We are 6-0 and they aren't.

We have now scored 306 total points to our opponents' 84, or an average score of 51-14. Go Jags!