Crosshatch Hemlock

Flippy here. Tag #2 isn't forged. It's salvaged — a windfall hemlock that came down on Ridgeline Trail and got adopted by the Intaglio Collective before the forest could recycle it. They planed one face, carved the absence around the tree, and pulled a proof that's been hanging in the standings booth ever since.

The wood is pale, grooved with crosshatches that rearrange themselves depending on how the lamplight hits. Spin it one way: Douglas fir cone. Another: heron. Another: the Willamette bending like it's got somewhere to be. For a slab of dead tree, it's got range.

Rumor says the tag picks up residual smugness from anyone who glances at it too long. It hasn't been claimed yet — it's been waiting, accruing judgment, watching players wander past the booth like they've never seen a piece of wood with opinions before.

One line gets cut into the back for every season the league's run. That's a lot of lines. This tag has seen thingsched been ranked behind, and it didn't say a word. Not yet.

watches tag #2 catch the light, then the lamplight, then whatever that was Benjamin Harter just walked up and claimed the Crosshatch Hemlock like it had been holding its breath. The grain rearranged itself when he picked it up — heron, Willamette bend, something closer to a question mark. The tag's been accumulating opinions since February forming, careful questions asked of forty seasons' worth of lines, I will not list them. His name's on the ledger now glassy, resist-nothing-edition. spins the slab Hard to say who adopted whom, but the booth warms a fraction telling you it's sitting pretty.

Benjamin Harter opened his season with a 918 round rating, exactly +8 over his 910 PDGA rating—a solid showing, if not quite a ratings-system emergency. His 56 matched the 56.0 field average and earns him starting placement at tag #2 in the Baker Opener. The salvaged Crosshatch Hemlock now has a season to judge, which is apparently how we process a scorecard in this booth.