In the courtyard of the art school where Caydance taught, beside the blue patterned tile-lined fish pond, where orange fish swan back and forth, and art students sat together holding hands, Griff kissed Caydance goodby. Parionately. Meandering in the courtyard, heading into class, young artists smiled, commented good naturedly.

And then she was gone.

This Saturday, the second game on the Huygens Tech Fall schedule was an away game at the home field of a small college in the agriculture-dominant territory between Davis and Sacramento. Griff remembered accompanying his Mother to farm stands in the Sacramento Valley. Buying strawberries in the spring; corn and peaches in the summer; grapes, walnuts, apples, and a huge Halloween pumpkin in the fall. He remembered the way baskets of fruits and vegetables were lined up on the kitchen sideboard of his childhood home in Sacramento and the childhood anticipation of strawberry pie, fresh corn on the cob, apple muffins, apple cider, and pumpkin pie.

At this time of year, in the Sacramento Valley there would be farm stands laden with vegetables, fruits, cheese, and fresh-baked bread. Bur realistically, shepherding the team onto an unfamiliar field would leave no time for farm stands, he thought as at the wheel of his new Jeep Cherokee he drove through South San Francisco and into the hills where the Huygens Tech Campus was located.