Tercentennial Bocce Tourney Back On

By SHANNON HICKS

Published: Jul 22, 2005 12:00 am

By Shannon Hicks

Rosemary Zanfini has stepped in to organize a bocce tournament on Saturday, August 6. The event will be part of the All-Day Birthday Celebration for Newtownâs Tercentennial.

Although the tournament has been listed on various calendars and notices around town for months, the status of the tournament in recent weeks has been questionable. This week Ms Zanfini decided to step in to coordinate the event after learning that it would be canceled for lack of organization.

There is no charge to participate, and players of all ages and levels are encouraged to join the fun.

Ms Zanfini is a Newtown resident and part of an informal group of ladies who meet every Monday to play bocce at The Pleasance, the park at 1 Main Street where the tournament will take place.

âIâd love to hear from anyone who wants to play and who just wants to enjoy the game,â Ms Zanfini said this week. âWe really have a good time each week. We hope to have a good turnout for this tournament.â

Play is expected to begin around 9 am, and games take about an hour to complete. Bocce equipment will be supplied. Competition will be single-elimination play, with teams of four players.

As of midweek Ms Zanfini had 12 confirmed players. She is looking for people to sign up in any configuration; singles, doubles and triples will be combined into teams of four, while those who sign up as a team of four will play together.

For additional information or to join the fun, contact Ms Zanfini at 270-7098.

A bocce court is located in the original section of The Pleasance, in the lower lawn near the gazebo. The park, which is owned by The Bee Publishing Co., is open daily for public use.

The court at The Pleasance is gravel based, and a rake is kept nearby so that players can even out the court before they begin play.

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John, you raise an important point — these situations are tragic, complicated, and often far less clear-cut than the headlines make them seem. In the Fredericksburg case, the full facts still aren’t publicly known, and like so many of these stories, there’s conflicting information. It was apparently the back door at 3 a.m. — was it justified to use deadly force? We don’t know yet. What we do know is that the homeowner has been charged, and as you rightly noted, that is very serious. But this is also where perspective matters. These cases are quickly sensationalized in the news and on social media, yet when the dust settles, the outcomes are rarely publicized. People forget that in our system, you are innocent until proven guilty. Try to find much coverage of the convication in the case of the Fairfield Realtor vehicle homicide, or updates on the woman who shot her husband a couple of Christmases ago, or even the pedestrian death in Sandy Hook a year or so back. The follow-through simply isn’t there, and public opinion is often shaped only by the first round of headlines. At the end of the day, these situations remind us how split-second decisions in the middle of the night can change lives forever — which is exactly why the right to protect one’s property, home and family is so fiercely debated, and lucky constitutionally protected.

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Tercentennial Bocce Tourney Back On

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