“K” is for Keepers

I love sports. When I was much younger, I was involved in several sports, playing on softball, volleyball and basketball teams, as well as running for the school’s track team. J.K. Rowling invented a new sport in her Harry Potter books which – had I been about 30-50 years younger and this sport had really existed – I would have loved to play: Quidditch. The game is played on broomsticks, and broomsticks and I have a certain affinity for each other… Anyway, a Quidditch team is composed of seven players, one of which is called the KEEPER. The keeper’s role is to keep the soccer ball-sized Quaffle ball from being thrown through any of the three fifty feet tall hoops on his side of the field.

There are many types of keepers: finders-keepers, losers-weepers (I don’t always subscribe to this statement), secret keepers, door-keepers, inn-keepers, things that are so good they are keepers, goal keepers, Keeper of the Faith, etc.

For the most part, keepers are protectors, entrusted with the care of something of value. When I think of finders-keepers, a more positive way of considering the question is that the finders are keepers (protectors) of something until the weeping losers find what has been lost. Being a keeper is a good thing; I would like to be a keeper—in all senses.