The following is a story of how late one night on the campus of Wayne State University, I began tossing Frisbee with three random dudes.
It was just after sunset on this particular warm June Friday, and a group of us interns were walking home from a free planetarium showing put on by WSUs Astronomy department (which inexplicably contained a black hole movie narrated by Liam Neeson…), when at the volleyball courts outside the apartment there were two young lads playing Frisbee with a glow-in-the-dark disc. Before I knew it, there was a mis-throw and the softly glowing circle floated gently to my feet. I bent down to pick it up, and like any good Samaritan I gave it a ginger whirl back to the owners. Upon seeing my perfect throw, and undoubtedly discerning my laid-back and care free personality, the shorter of the two gents asked “Hey man, wanna toss?”
I emphatically responded, “yeah bru I’ll toss”
And so we went on, bare feet running in the sand, chatting to each other about life and Frisbee. It turns out both of my new friends attend the University of Michigan and were visiting Detroit with their church doing missions work throughout the city. What’s more eerie is that one was also an Economics major (like me) and we had a lengthy discussion of which classes were hard and who the weirdest professor in the department was. This is not, however, the conclusion to my story. For 15 minutes later, as fate would have it, another botched attempt of a throw landed the toy at the feet of another man; and the owners being who they are asked him if he too would like to join in. And what’re the chances – he said he’d toss too.
So there we were. Four strangers brought together by the stars and a common enjoyment of an aerodynamic piece of plastic. Our new teammate is an intern with Quicken Loans, from Florida for university but from Venezuela originally. The night was perfectly serendipitous and somehow therapeutic. After a while, the owners had to leave, and we all went our respective different ways. I don’t know where they are now, but I do hope that life is finding them well. I have forgotten their names since, but if I saw them throw a Frisbee, I’d know who they were in a heartbeat.
Cheers,
Timothy
Tim, this is such a nice story! I love how when the timing is right, strangers can bond over the most simple things like frisbeeing (is that a word?). I have a handful of similar stories about playing football with some kids in England when I was young. I feel like it’s such a testament to the basic idea that we’re all just humans looking to relax. I hope you run into your teammates again in the future.
Okay, so I remember this night too. I also remember being impressed you were able to just pick up a game of frisbee with strangers, and so it’s cool to see how the scene I dropped in on took form.
If it’s of any interest, the guys were from Harvest Mission Community Church. I’ve only had exposure to the church over this summer, but Roselyn introduced me so you can be confident the vibes are real honest and genuine.
I remember this! The rest of us walked into the building like, haha, what? Did that just happen? I didn’t realize they were from that church–I actually talked to someone before who’s part of it and also an Econ major at U-M and we talked about Econ classes and professors, but I know that it wasn’t the same person because I didn’t recognize any of your Frisbee chums…they must have deep roots in the Econ department? You call it a mis-throw, but….