Football

Football is back! The games are on television and I’ve seen quite a few people either playing football or just tossing a football around. Around here, this time of the year is perfect for being outside and doing something. It’s not too hot and it’s not too cold. You can work up a bit of a sweat, but not have your shirt soaked through. If you’re not much of a doer, there’s nothing like watching football on a Sunday afternoon, hanging out with friends or family and eating some good food.

Football was big in my neighborhood growing up. When we only had a few guys we played out in the street, two-hand touch, from telephone pole to telephone pole, and the defense had to count to 5-Mississippi before they could rush the quarterback. You would think that counting to 5-Mississippi would be simple, but not much was with those guys. There were the guys who made up their own language when they counted (1missippi2missippi3missippi4missippi5missippi). I still haven’t found Missippi on a map. There were guys who rushed the quarterback when they got to the five in 5-Mississippi instead of after saying the full Mississippi. There were the guys who counted silently when you were supposed to count out loud, yelled “5-MISSISSIPPI!” after about 2.5 seconds and then rushed the quarterback.

Sometimes we made up first down markers, like you had to get past the tree in the front yard of our house or past the front walkway of the neighbor’s house across the street. Once you got past that mark, we chose another. Or sometimes we played that if you completed a pass, the down stayed the same. You could theoretically drive the length of the field, going 2 feet at a time, all the while being on first down. The shorter the pass, the better chance of actually catching it, so sometimes people would try to sneak in a pass that was behind the line of scrimmage, but the rule was that the receiver had to be over it to be considered a complete pass.

Of course there were always the arguments over whether the guy got you with one hand or two. There were some kids who would swear on their mother’s grave that you didn’t tag them with both hands and sometimes it just wasn’t worth the argument. But just to make sure they didn’t do it again, they just might get tagged a little extra roughly the next time he caught the ball. There were some kids who would lie or cheat in order to win so there were always arguments, ranging from the 5-Mississippi rule, to whether a pass was complete or not, to whether you tagged them with both hands. Amazingly, I don’t remember any games breaking out into actual fights. You argued your side, made your point and then we moved on for the good of the game.

When we had a larger number of kids to play, we went to a field at the beginning of the cemetery at the end of our street and played tackle football. No, we didn’t play amongst the graves. The front part of the cemetery was actually very nice. It had the field we played football on, some nice trees, a couple of ponds we played hockey on in the winter and people fished in during the other months, and a small hill that kids went sledding on in the winter. The graves started beyond the ponds and never bothered any of us – except at night, when we weren’t supposed to be in the cemetery at all. So we’d have our big game and we all got dirty, some of us got slightly hurt and a few of us lost our shirts. I remember a few of my friends going home and getting yelled at for the condition of their clothes and themselves, but hey, this is football, not badminton!

A highlight of the games, whether two-hand touch in the street or tackle in the cemetery, was after playing for a few hours we’d pool our money, go to the Sunoco station and buy sodas for everybody. If we had enough money, we shared some candy bars, too. Isn’t it funny how you could be beating each other up, getting into heated arguments and swearing you would never play with that kid again, and then you’d get a Mountain Dew or a Pepsi and all was forgotten? Now that I think about it, there were times we didn’t have enough money for each of us to have a soda so we shared those, too. Without straws. And none of us died.

If you want to get out of the house this weekend and not have to do yard work, go play some football. A little three-on-three, two-hand touch is great exercise. Us older guys aren’t as quick as we used to be, or as limber, so take it easy on us. But please, don’t be that guy who always says you only got him with one hand. You just may get unexpectedly jacked up!

Here's Looking at You Kid

My wife and I had dinner with some friends the other night that we hadn’t seen in a long time. Before dinner we were sitting in the living room and talking when my wife asked about a portrait that was hanging on the wall. I had been looking at that painting, which was of a young woman, since I got there because of her eyes. I might be a little strange, but sometimes I see a picture or a painting of someone and I can’t forget their eyes. This picture was like that.

A person’s eyes can tell us so much. There are times when a person is smiling in a picture but their eyes tell a different story. You can see the hurt, the pain or the sorrow despite what the mouth is telling you. Sometimes the eyes are just vacant, like there’s no life behind the face. Other times there’s just something about a person’s eyes that says that this person is fun, interesting or maybe a little crazy. It’s like they’re sitting all serious for the moment, but at any second they’re just going to burst out laughing uncontrollably. Again, this may seem a little strange, but sometimes a person’s eyes in a picture or a painting just seem to follow you wherever you go in the room. This picture was like that.

It turns out that the painting was of our friend Lesley’s great grandmother when she was younger and was from the 1850’s. When I first got to Tony and Lesley’s house, I was standing straight across from the painting and noticed it and how the eyes seemed to be looking right at me. Later, I was off to the right of it and noticed how the eyes seemed to still be looking right at me. Standing up so the painting was below eye level or sitting down so it was above eye level made no difference; the eyes were still looking right at me. I figured I was imagining it. So when my wife asked about the painting I started to say something about the eyes, but Lesley finished my sentence about how the eyes follow you. So maybe I wasn’t imagining it after all.

When I was in high school and my first year of college, we lived in a big, old house with a semi-creepy basement. My older brothers had a fairly realistic (for the time) ugly old man mask and one year around Halloween they found some old pants, an old boy scout shirt and some old boots, and stuffed them with leaves to make a body for the mask. They stuck an empty beer bottle in one “hand” and a pool stick in the other hand, and Bill was born. To add the finishing touch, they drew eyes on pieces of white paper and taped them in the eye sockets. Bill was placed in the corner of the basement and became our constant companion down there, hanging out with us as we played pool and ping pong, listened to music and did the stuff teenagers do. Here’s the really weird part: No matter where you were in the basement, Bill’s eyes were looking right at you! Two people on two different sides of the basement would swear on their lives that Bill was looking directly at them. Quite a few people thought Bill was alive and some were afraid to go near him. There were a few times me and my friends could have sworn we saw Bill move.  

I have always liked to read and one year I decided to read The Amityville Horror. Because the house was usually noisy, I decided to read it in the quietest place in the house – in the basement. I’ve already mentioned that it was kind of creepy in the basement and I did have a vivid imagination, but there were times I put the book down and just stared at Bill for a few minutes to make sure he wasn’t getting closer. I’d pretend I was reading but was actually looking at Bill out of the corner of my eye because I was sure he was moving. I really didn’t want to get hit over the head with a pool stick or a beer bottle, so I wasn’t going to let Bill sneak up on me! I actually even started thinking that maybe my house was haunted, too, due to the Amityville effect. It got to the point that I didn’t want to go into the basement myself, whether it was the middle of the day or the middle of the night. I’m pretty sure that I finished reading the book in my room, noise and all. The amusing part was that when I saw the movie, I actually laughed because it was so mild compared to the things I envisioned in my head, especially while I was reading down in the basement with Bill watching every move I made and plotting how he was going to get me.

I don’t know when Bill was finally laid to rest, but I do know that imagination can be much scarier than movies and reality. Bill is a testament to that. Sometimes imagination can also be more interesting than reality. I had already created multiple scenarios in my head about the girl in the painting when Lesley told us who she was, all more involved than her being her great grandmother who lived a normal life. Because in the end, those eyes that followed me told me there was something more to the picture. I just haven’t figured out what.

With Autumn Closing In

Many people see Labor Day as the end of summer. In many ways, it is the unofficial end of summer, even if there are a few weeks left until the official date. Kids usually go back to school either just before or just after Labor Day. Adults are usually finished with vacations by Labor Day, although if you’re like me, you save at least a few days for the day after Thanksgiving and the week between Christmas and New Year. My son went back to school this year on the Wednesday before Labor Day, while last year he went back to school the Wednesday after Labor Day. Why the difference? Other than because the last day of school was June 26^th last year due to snow days, who knows? Also, my daughter starts college this year and we moved her into her college dorm on Saturday, Labor Day weekend, with her classes starting the next Thursday.

With the kids back to school related issues and our non-summer schedule back, one thing I’ve noticed is how much earlier it is getting dark. Gone are the days when it was light past 8:30, the light lingering long enough that we didn’t need the indoor lights until it was almost time to go to bed – well, at least for me; the older I get the earlier I get tired. Now it is dark by 7:30 and we’re losing daylight minutes every day. It’s funny how the earlier sunset just kind of creeps up on you. Even though we’re losing daylight minutes every day from the Summer Solstice, we don’t really notice it. Then we get to the end of August/beginning of September and one day it hits us, it’s 7:30 and it’s almost dark! We act like it’s totally unexpected or it’s never happened to us before in our life, even though it’s an annual occurrence.

When I was a kid in elementary school and junior high, I hated seeing the “Back to School” advertisements, whether on television or in the paper. To me, it meant that summer, and all the fun that went with it, was over. No more long days of wiffle ball, baseball and the other games we played; no more swimming in the pool and eating lunch outside in the back yard; no more coming and going as we pleased and just hanging out in my front yard. It meant that it was time to go back to school and the associated long days of classrooms, homework and general boredom. When I got to high school I dreaded hearing the song “Night Moves” by Bob Seger, because of the line “With autumn closing in.” Those words told me that hanging out with my friends and the freedom from responsibility were gone. I guess I still kind of hate hearing that song in late summer because of the reminder that fewer hours of daylight are coming, fewer days of warmth are coming and less time with family is coming.

Still, it wasn’t all doom and gloom back then. I had one neighborhood friend who was away at camp for the month of August and he usually came home just before Labor Day weekend. I had another friend who was away at their summer home for the whole summer and he always came home after dinner on Labor Day. It was fun to hear all about their adventures while they were away, exaggerated or not, and tell them what had gone on while they were gone. Since we always went back to school on the Wednesday after Labor Day, we’d plot our Tuesday together so that we’d get as much fun packed into the day as was humanly possible. For one last day, autumn was held back as we laughed, played and basked in the glory of the late-summer sun. Those were good times.

So, the kids are back at school, it’s time to close the pool for the season and it’s time to break out a sweatshirt or two. Some leaves here and there are already starting to change color or fall from the trees, the days are getting shorter and the nights are getting cooler. The baseball season is winding down and the football season is starting up. Unofficially, summer is over and change is in the air. But we know that there will still be some beautiful, sunny days where we can be outside, doing whatever, without wilting in the hot, humid summer air. And for at least one more day, autumn will be held back and we’ll laugh, play and bask in the glory of the later-summer sun. Because officially, there’s still a few weeks of summer left.