THOSE WERE THE DAYS
Those were the days my friend
We thought they'd never end
We'd sing and dance forever and a day
We'd live the life we choose
We'd fight and never lose
For we were young and sure to have our way
La la la la
Those were the days, oh yes those were the days
(Songwriters: Boris Fomin and Gene Raskin)
Listen to the song here by Mary Hopkin... it was a #1 Song produced by Paul McCartney in 1968.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GielMXWQlbw
Ah, the good old golden days of 1950... sadly for most of us they did end... but not on the pristine white beaches of North Island, situated on the beautiful blue waters of Lake Woebegone.
North Island is a little place that time forgot and the decades cannot improve... where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking and can hit a curve ball... and all the kids are above average... it's a wonderful place to enjoy life and raise a family... and it's the home of the North Island Recreational League.
Keeler Garrison and all of his high school buddies made sure the good old days of yore would live on... baseball was their great love... they had played it together on the sandlots, playgrounds, in grammar school, junior high and high school... they went on to go to college where most of them weren't good enough to play... returning home to North Island and family and friends, they needed something to do to fill the long, hot days of summer... they decided to do it with the North Island Recreational League, the NIRL.
There are 12 small towns on the Island... Garrison proposed a recreational baseball league with one team in each town... every Sunday afternoon the oldtimers would go at it again on the diamond... each team would be composed of graduates of one of the 12 high schools... you could only play for your old high school... and no one else.. so the age-old school rivalries would be revived and revved up... there would be two leagues, the NIRL First Division and the NIRL Second Division, with six teams each and a 30-game schedule... each season at the end of play, the bottom two teams in the First Division would be demoted or relegated to the Second Divsion, while the best two teams in the Second Division would be promoted up to the First Division... First Division and Second Division teams would be determined in a double-elimination tournament prior to the first season... so the best teams are in the First Division, the worst teams are in the Second Division.
(Special thanks to Garrison Keiller and the Prairie Home Companion for some great lines that I stole from them)
And a very, very special thanks to Sizeman21 for creating this beautiful map of North Island... it's just a tad better than my original map, don't you think?
