What a beautiful night to go chalk hunting

What a beautiful winter’s night to just sit back by the fireplace have some hot tea and relax. “Why can’t you relax?” my wife asked. “I got to go to the store. I’m out of chalk.”
I replied. You got to be prepared the night before a game. Yes I could have probably waited until we crossed the border in the morning and bought some chalk at Canadian Tire. The problem was – What if they don’t sell any chalk? What if all the Canadian coaches have bought it all up? That’s it I was out the door into the snowy cold wintery night to go to our local drug store to buy some chalk. When I got to the local pharmacy – the only store open on our side of town that I could think of I did the usual; instead of asking for help from one of the clerks I spent about ten minutes wandering around the aisles looking for chalk on my own. “Can I help you?” one of the young clerks finally asked (probably thinking I was looking for some cold medicine like everyone else in the store) “I was wondering if you had any chalk?” “We have crayons in with the school supplies” I was informed. I didn’t think crayons would cut it. I went home in defeat. I tore through the house looking for some chalk anywhere I could even remotely imagine. Finally, success! I had one half piece of chalk in the garage with my old skate sharpener – (which was a very effective tool for removing any useable edge from your blades – I learned this the hard way) The next day in the locker room at the Spencerville rink I reached into my jacket, retrieved my prize piece of chalk and began writing on the well worn chalkboard like a true pro. I left that half piece of chalk above the old chalkboard for the next guy. You never know when you might be the next guy looking for some chalk. Since then I’ve switched over to the dry erase boards like every other knucklehead who carries their rink board around with them. (Now I have to remember to bring a useable dry erase marker around – oh how complicated I’ve made this!) They are useful sometimes, but I like the old school way of writing on the chalkboard.
At work I sometimes use power point presentations to show in a cartoon way what I’m trying to explain. I’d rather use a chalkboard and a whistle. Why complicate a simple idea? Before a game or on the bench you don’t have a lot of time to go over tons of complex diagrams and schematics. You have to get to the point right away and make sure everyone understands what you’re trying to get across. Chalk is a lot lighter than a laptop. Of course you’ll need to keep some information in your head for retrieval. Small notebooks are acceptable, but that should be enough if you know what you’re doing. Keep it Simple and maybe you might just get everyone on the same page. That does come in handy when you’re working with a team. Oh ya, leave some chalk for the next guy, and hopefully they’ll leave some for the next and so on etc etc.