In which we exit our glass houses

Our friend Susannah recently gave us a heads-up that the family park Azmännig was having a Schwingfest today. But, unlike the Fest that we saw on the top of Rigi Staffel, this one was just for children.  Susannah said she was willing to lay down money that Joey would be able to defeat the entire field of child wrestlers in the tournament. I suppose he does have a few things going for him.  He's tough, as a younger brother must be, and he's quite accustomed to wearing a diaper, although the burlap would be a bit of a change for him.  

We weren't all together sure that we would be able to convince any of our kids to participate in the wrestling, but we grown-ups were intrigued by the promise of "Steinstossen für Jung und Alt."  

And especially interested were our friends Torrey and Claire.  Those two might well be the strongest man and woman in all of Zürich, and Torrey had mentioned, particularly, that he kind of wanted to stossen a few Steins if we ever heard of any opportunities.

Joey seems to have inherited Dennis's
love for maps.  He's playing "find the
cartographic symbol"

We took Torrey at his word, and invited our friends to make the hour-long trip with us to Azmännig.

They were still setting up when we arrived: we got to watch a truck dump a giant pile of sawdust for the wrestling ring.  But the Steinstossen crew were all set up and taking contestants.

Alex and Dennis were the bravest of us all: young and old registered first and took their place in line.  Luckily, one of the men running the event was, in his words, a former "ringer und schwinger." In other words, he used to participate in the Alpine wrestling and stone throwing events in his youth, and he was happy to give us some help.

And, along with teaching us all some technique, he told a few short stories.  Apparently, the heaviest stone he ever threw in competition was all of 80 kilograms.  Needless to say, our instructor threw the 12-kg stone for the men's weight class without any trouble at all.

Alex was given a little 4-kg stone for his three throws and then, emboldened, Ella and Claire and I decided to give it a try as well.  Torrey was actually planning on sitting out the event--his back was giving him trouble and he didn't want to aggravate an injury, but it looked like too much fun to pass up. He decided he had to throw his hat, er, Stein, into the ring as well.

We took some vidoes of the group of us being thoroughly Swiss.  I think it's a good thing I was there: everyone else made it look easy.

You'll notice a conspicuous absence in our line-up.   Poor Joey.  He was trotting over to little pile of stones when the officials stopped him. "Oh no, he's too small!" they told us. Dennis didn't even have to the bad news for Joey: he could tell by the tone of their voice.  He immediately dropped his head in a sulk, stuck out his lower lip, and trudged away.

Of course, Azmännig has many other charms besides rustic shot put, and eventually these distracted Joey from his pouting.  And not the least of these was lunch. We took a table on the patio, in sight of the Schwingen ring, into which a steady stream of kids entered.  Boys, and girls, too, I was pleased to see.  It was awfully cute watching the kids learn the etiquette of the sport--shaking hands before the match, and ceremonially dusting the shorts of their opponents after the match--a well as the technique of how, exactly, to grab hold of your opponent's shorts and throw him or her to the ground.

We had to cut our meal short, though: our table must have been close to a wasp's nest, and I watched in terror as several swarmed around Joey's face and food.  Luckily, he thought it was a bit of a joke, and didn't get scared, and we got him out of there before he got stung.

Dennis and I took turns taking the kids on the giant Rutschbahn, the toboggan run.  Alex loved the slide best, and so he both of us had the pleasure of taking him down the slide.  Alex is ridiculously bold: cackling wildly, he kept the brake off the entire slide down, with me throwing my weight as hard as I could against the turns.  Frankly, terrifying.

Joey, too, is a little wary of Alex's speed-demon
tendencies

Although Joey, too, took his thrills where he could, dragging Dennis and me and even Claire to the top of a straight-down slide.  That's not fear on his face in this picture: that's fierce concentration, soon to be followed by absolute joy.

Joey, taking a break with the cool kids.

We stayed until quite late in the day and didn't get home until dinner.  But instead of looking for food when got off our rain,  Joey made a beeline to the little stone-pit playground adjacent to train station.  And he picked up the biggest stone that he could hold, and threw it as far as he could.  

I think Joey's rock may have been heavier
than the one I threw.

Too small for Steinstossen? Bah! He'll show them!