Back in Love with Bocce. Tony Simone** Guest Writer

The excitement of the game is matched by the camaraderie

I am reflecting on my early years in Providence, RI, when I was a kid living on Windmill Street, a residential street with a few double-decker homes and ample space for gardens. I went to live there at two. My parents’ landlord “kicked” us out of our 3rd-floor apartment because I made too much noise.

One day, my father came home to find me tied to a highchair because I wouldn’t stop running around. Soon after, my father bought a piece of land to build a home. Since it was soon after World War II, getting building materials was difficult. He persevered, and in two years, we moved into a brick beauty.

During those early years, I played in our large lot with my two brothers. At seven or eight, my desire to venture grew, and with a refurbished Columbia bike and a radio in the center post, I was hot stuff and ready to go!

My parents gave my brothers and me the rules: don’t go over the line into North Providence, only about two-tenths of a mile, but to me, it could have been another state. After exploring the neighborhood, I noticed that at noon every day, the garage doors of a nice home opened. Cars would line up on the street, and men would go into the garage and disappear. After checking the situation from a vantage point on a side street in North Providence ( my parents never knew), I saw why.

Having passed through the garage, they were now stationed in the rear yard.

I could hear loud talking and occasional cussing, like “Son-of-a-B…” or “You are-cheating, bum?” What caused such anger?

Here is the juicy part. One day, during summer vacation, I ventured into the woods that separated us from North Providence. As I approached this backyard, there it was, a bocce court with old guys drinking Narragansett beer and smoking a piece of rope, which I later learned was an Italian cigar, a stogie.

The game was simple: throw a small white ball into the middle of this oversized box. The men, using different colored balls the size of candlepin bowling balls, aimed to get them as close as possible to the white ball. Those who succeeded earned points. That’s it! Simple. But arguments and name-calling made me think these men hated each other. In reality, they loved the game and the camaraderie. Each summer day and into late fall, the men gathered to play bocce.

One day, as I was peeking through the trees, one of the men saw me and asked me to come over to roll a ball. I felt special. During the remainder of the summer, on occasion, they would ask me.

I loved the game, now my game, not my brothers’ or my friends. My game…. My “son-of-B- B…” game.

During the years that followed, I, like many others, would play a version of bocce on the grass around the house or at the beach, but it wasn’t the same as Windmill Street. Fast forward 50 years, and I retired. My wife said, “Hey Tony, why don’t you build a bocce court on our land?” She lit my bulb.

A few months later, I finished building the court, and the neighbors came, and we played bocce, doing the same thing I remember on Windmill Street; “Son-of-a-b…” Can you believe it?

Tony Builds a Court

Courtesy of Landscaping Network

One day, I was visiting an old club in our town, and as I was walking around the building, I noticed an abandoned bocce court that had seen better days. I asked the owner if he wouldn’t mind if I rehabilitated the court.

From the Original Four to This Robust Group

Now, after eight years, that one court is four, and the four guys I asked to join me in the bocce group have increased to over forty! We meet three times a week, men and women, and play for a few hours. We have a tournament to raise money for a local cancer fund, and we have a ball, “Son of a B…..”

“I love Bocce!’ screams Tony. No wonder. Look how much you have contributed from “B_ _ _ _ _ to Beloved.”

**Tony Simone is a retired educator living and playing in the Mount Washington Valley part of New Hampshire.