Turf wars

From Wikipedia:

"Following passage of the Homestead Act by the US Congress in 1862, settlers in the Great Plains used sod bricks to build entire sod houses.[3] While it might be hard for some to imagine sod as a suitable primary building material, the prairie sod of the Great Plains was so dense and difficult to cut it earned the nickname Nebraska marble."

Meanwhile, from this morning’s local rag:

"GREENFIELD — The School Building Committee has decided Greenfield school athletes will play on sod fields — a decision that disappointed the parents, coaches and students who turned out at the Tuesday’s meeting to push for a turf field."

While turf is synonymous with sod in Roget’s, it’s come to mean (at least here) that plastic, artificial stuff that defiles indoor stadia these days. Alas. And everybody seems to want it—the local school board’s preference for real grass (sod) is strictly budgetary.

In the words of one budding field-hockey jock, "It’s hard to play when the ball is bouncing all over the place.”