During a 64-0 game, looking for beauty off the ball is a defensible approach to keeping oneself occupied

When the highpoint of a game is the losing team's ability to recover one of its own fumbles (above), it's no crime to look away from the field to see what's going on elsewhere. Like the arrival of fall, for example. That was the case Saturday, as the gold team (above) was dropping a 64-0 nail-biter (it was 30-0 late in the first quarter) to the blue team in Richmond Youth Football. You had to feel for the boys on the losing team, who were simply outmatched by the faster, harder-hitting winners. While this was transpiring (I was covering the game for the paper), I distracted myself by spotting a nice fall scene "off the ball," as well as a young swinger (shame on you, not that kind of swinger) trying to go airborne on the playground. We've all been there -- getting thumped by superior talent, changing colors as time marches on and trying to overcome an immovable force like gravity. It's all part of the greater scheme of things, right? That, and a good cup of coffee in the morning, my little treybooshkas.