Night Bocce Ball

Just returned from a weekend of abalone diving. Or, rather, abalone eating. Several times a year, a spirited group of friends plans a camping trip to the Medocino area, for the sole purpose of abalone diving. I look forward to these trips with unbridled anticipation. The drive up is always stupendous, a good four hour drive with my best friend Emily. We usually stop at a barely populated beach along the way, she surfs, I read on the beach, wrapped in layers of fleece and wool. We usually arrive in to the abalone campsite in the late afternoon, just in time to utilize the last rays of light to pitch our tent. This year was no exception.

We arrived, just as the divers were returning from their first dive of the weekend. Nine beautiful, shiny, unsuspecting abalone greeted us. Emily and I pitched our tent, then materialized for campfire duty. The divers prepared the abalone, striking it with a crowbar to tenderize it, scooping it from its luminescent shell, slicing it into edible portions. I resumed my regular duties: chopping garlic, washing asparagus, timing the pasta. And watching. Watching and waiting. Food prepared over a campfire always seems more delicious, more tantalizing, than food prepared in a kitchen, but this more so. Keeping with tradition, we prepared three varieties of abalone: sauteed with butter and garlic, breaded and fried, and “happy enchiladas” a layered concoction of sliced abalone, salsa, chiles, and lots of cheese that tastes unlike anything I’ve ever had before.

Dinner is a communal experience. The abalone is taken from the frying pan onto a single plate. The first person takes a bite, then passes the sole plate to the next person at the campfire. That person digs in, then passes it to the next person, and so on, and so on, and so on. Dinner lasts for hours, a bite here, a bite there. When all the food is gone, dinner is done and the cleanup commences.

As we were roasting s’mores, Ladd announced it was time for night bocce ball. I perked up. This was a new tradition. Something introduced on the last abalone camping trip, the one I missed because I was still in Korea. “What is this night bocce ball? Do tell….” It was explained to me. A bocce ball set, one of the plastic variety, was produced. Glow sticks, the bright neon tiny ones commonly found at raves, were taped unrelentingly to the balls, each person a different color. The colors were exhausted quickly, so color combinations were utilized. I was blue and green.

We began, Ladd throwing the first ball into the woods. No flashlights allowed. We watched as the first ball rolled into the brushes, the glow sticks barely perceptible as it bounced, then rolled, then stopped. Each of us, all eight of us, tossed our balls towards the now unseen ball. Branches were heard crushing. Splashes, into the nearby creek, echoed in the darkness. As the last one threw his ball, we rushed towards the pallino, seeing who earned the honors of tossing for the next round. This continued by the light of the nearly full moon, each round halted by an emergency search effort, as someone had undoubtedly lost their ball. “Red, we’re looking for the red glow sticks. The red bocce ball. Is it over there?” “Red is the hardest to see, you know. Something about the wave length of the color.” “I think I found it! It’s way over here…” “How’d it get that far? Are you sure?”

For three hours we engaged in this madness. This make believe sport on a magical playing field. We stopped not because it was no longer fun, but because we could no longer keep our eyes open. We were exhausted from a day of diving, cooking, eating, more eating, more eating, and night bocce ball. My new favorite sport.