Soccer tournament

In my free time, my wife and I direct the Nathan Thomas 6v6 Fall Tournament. This year was the 19th year, and the last year that it will be named after Nathan.  The Oregonian recently did a wonderful job of presenting the history of the tournament and the story of Nathan.   It is available here.

The McMurry Thomas family goes a long way back with my family, they lived in another state for a long time when I was young and I did not get to know them until I was older.  I was too old to play in the tournament, but my brother played.  My parents were involved in organizing the tournament for many years. I served on the committee several years ago as a way to honor Nathan and his amazing family. When I moved back to Portland, I re-joined the committee and was asked to take over as director.  I was glad to do so.   I wanted to continue to share the lessons and messages of strong community relationships, through the tournament.

In my opinion, this year was our best tournament. The weather was good, not great, and in fact it rained through most of the morning.  But it was great to see the smiling, happy faces. I didn't get time to take many pictures, but I could fill an album with smiles, and someday I may do that. What made this year great was seeing that we were able to get to the core of what the tournament is all about. We taught sportsmanship and fair play. We honored the Portland community, and we encouraged youth to be themselves and have fun. It was truly an amazing experience to see and hear Nathan's parents talking to the crowd of players, coaches, and families.  I am personally incredibly inspired by Greg, Martha, and Benjamin.  I will carry with me the value of forgiveness and grace that I see in them, and I hope that I can reflect those values as well.

Swifts

A very strange and unique thing that I got to experience for the very first time actually has nothing to do with the city itself, its people, culture, or anything else. It is all about a chimney in a school in NW Portland that for some reason is distinct. Each year in September, thousands of little tiny fast birds, called swifts nest in this chimney in their migratory trip south. The fascinating part of it is not so much that they nest there but that they swirl around and spiral into the chimney for quite some time and fly like a big cloud into the chimney as the sun sets. People set up camp on the field and around the school, the kids and parents at the school sell tshirts, popcorn and snacks, and it is really an entire event. I took lots of photos, including of the kids sledding down the hill on cardboard boxes or skateboards, but those will be for another day. Today, I will share one of the birds themselves. This is the moment that probably a few thousand of them flew around and into the chimney. It was a good opportunity to set up the tripod and try some low light shooting. It really did turn out pretty well.

Joe