Events: Keystone State Games: The Cube's Report

The Keystone State Games

July 28, 2005

       Preceding the Keystone States Games The Pogo Squad performed in a few other venues and we had all gotten a lot more comfortable with our pogo sticks in front of people. Looming on the horizon though was the Keystone State Games which would be, without a doubt, our biggest take-on yet.

            I contacted Nick and Fred and they both maneuvered their schedules so they could come down.

            On Wednesday, July 27^th, Phil Vera (Mr. Cuvav) and I went to the bus station to pick up Nick. At the same time my dad drove out to Harrisburg to pick up Fred.

            Everything went smoothly and we all pogoed until fairly late into the night.

            And then it all started.

            At 9:00AM I woke Nick and Fred up. People started arriving at our house in swarms until all 14 of us were amassed on my front lawn.

            We headed across the street to Phil’s house to practice. In just one hour we got all of Routine 1 down.

            Well, actually we just knew the whole layout. Most of us were too tired to do our Tuck Reverses and Leapfrogs and Backflips.

            We piled into the cars and drove on down into the heart of York. I met with the head of the event, Packy Moran and he sent us off to different parts of the city to simply entertain the masses before our first show.

            At 12:15 we gathered back into a little place called Cherry Lane. We waited patiently for the Baton Twirlers to go, for some old guy band to play, and for the president’s guard to march away.

            And then we were up.

            I walked up onto a little mini-concrete stage thing and announced who we were and what exactly we were all about.

            And then we started. Everything went without a hitch until my poor buddy Seth slipped on a Reverse Leg Wrap. Then Nick almost clipped me while jumping over me. Then Sir Master Fred flubbed his Reverse 180 Leapfrog. But he can do 10-foot high Backflip dismounts…so he’s forgiven.

            Then Nick came out to do his Tuck Reverses which, really folks, he always lands. But somehow he missed…twice…nasty-looking bails too, but when he got it the third time the crowd went insane so it almost worked out for the better.

            Then we popped on the Flybars and Nick pulled a surprise ULBS. And then Fred did another monstrous Backflip and that party was over.

            We hung out behind cherry lane for a good long time. The Auntie-Anne pretzel people gaze us coupons, and then we headed back to my house. With approximately 5 hours to kill we played long games of pogo, Nick did some crazy grinding, some interesting pulling of pogos against stop sign posts, and he and Fred even pulled off some huge jumps off of the Turkey Hill Welcome To City Of York wall.

            Now the time is 4:30. We need to be downtown by 6:00. Nobody else knows Routines 2 and 3. And now, everyone is exhausted from pogoing for now 7 ½ hours straight. To make a long, sweaty, tiring, story short, we managed to pull it together.

            We arrived back in downtown York at 6:00 and, since they closed down the streets for that night’s Sports-O-Rama, we had an entire street to ourselves just to practice.

            Very cool.

            Then all the fun started. The Fox News team came by an interviewed me. Fred, standing behind the camera guy tried everything in his power to make me crack up and, the ONE time I actually did, is the segment that ended up on the news…but that part comes later.

            Well, we trudged over to Continental Square and performed Routine 2. It went pretty darn well…especially with the addition of Little Will, the mini-backflip-off-a-master crazy cool dude.

            Then, at this point, I had to go. For you see good people, I also happened to be in the play Footloose and our second week of shows opened that night.

            And so I stumbled off onto the stage after 10 ½ hours of pogoing and performed one of the most energetic plays ever written. Point being…that’s not GOOD for a human.

            Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the rest of The Pogo Squad and Nick and Fred performed Routine 3…they winged some of it…but it ended up looking really sweet.

            Then the Fox News Guys came back and asked the remaining pogoers if they wanted to come back to the city around 10:15 to be on the live news.

            And so 2 more hours of pogoing ensued until one unlucky mom had to transport 6 delirious and crazy children back into the city.

            They bounced for the news, came back and watched a taped version of what they had done, and then I arrived home. The remaining few of us lay there in my TV room, utterly dead from 14 HOURS of non-stop craziness.

            Everyone eventually left until it was just me, Fred, and Nick. What did we do, the three of us so tired? We stayed up till 1 AM.

            The next day Fred made the papers with some crazy pictures of backflips and such. Carl Schoon, Captain Oblivious, made another paper as well as Little Will.

            We really conquered York.

            Well, Fred and Nick went home, offers came rolling in for more shows…and I…I went back to bed.