Fall and Football

Ah, Fall. The days are warm, the nights are cool and everyone in the family is back to a normal schedule (that means I’m not the only who isn’t on vacation). I really do love this time of year, when you can go outside in the middle of the day and do stuff and not be sweating profusely. The sky is a deep blue color and the leaves are starting to turn colors, too. You go out at night and someone in the neighborhood is burning some wood. I just love that smell. Somewhere from the back of my mind, happy thoughts and memories come forth. And then there’s football.

Yes, football season is in full swing, already four games into the season. There is just something relaxing about watching a game or two on Sunday afternoon, hanging out with family and friends, and eating some good food. I’d love for the Patriots to win all their games, but does it really matter in the grand scheme of things? If I’m watching the game all by myself and my team wins, it’s not as much fun as watching the game when my team loses if I’m with a bunch of people. Unless I have something important to do, I’m watching at least one game every Sunday.

I didn’t play organized football as a kid. We had plenty of games, either playing two-hand touch in the street, or playing tackle football in our back yard or in the field at the cemetery. We also played another kind of football. There was no running, no passing and no tackling. We didn’t even go outside to play it. No, this kind of football was played indoors, on a table or a desk, with paper. That’s right, paper. You took a piece of paper and folded it into a small triangle and pushed the “football” toward the other guy’s end of the table. If it hung over the end without falling off, you had a touchdown. You kicked extra points by having the other guy lean on his elbows and make a “U” shape with his two hands, thumbs touching and pointer fingers extended up for goal posts. You had to kick it through the uprights for it to be good.

I guess the real name of the game is paper football, but we just called it table football. In elementary school, we played at recess on a table at the back of the room when we couldn’t go outside due to bad weather. When the bell rang for the end of recess the game was over. One year we decided to make the football out of construction paper instead of regular white-lined paper. That little paper football left a mark! In middle school, we played at lunch on a table in the corner of the cafeteria. If too many people (girls) complained about getting hit in the back of the head by a football, that was the end of that game, so we tried to get a table in the corner away from everybody else. We even played a little in high school at lunch or in study hall. Study hall was a time when you didn’t have a class scheduled and you were supposed to, well, study. However, not many people studied in study hall. We felt like we were getting a little too old for paper football, so it kind of died out after freshman year.

We used to play at home, too. We had a perfect sized coffee table in the living room that was just made for paper football. It was smooth wood on top, no ridges, no tiles, no nothing, just wood. I think one of my brothers might have made it in woodshop in school. I liked playing against my older brothers because size didn’t matter, I could actually beat them in spite of how much smaller I was. Of course, most of the time they beat me anyway, but it was still fun to play. It was awesome to drill them in the face with that little paper football when kicking extra points. I was pretty accurate with those. We’d play, laugh, have fun and usually end up fighting about something. Then we’d pull ourselves together and finish the game before Mom shut the whole thing down. No, it was better to overlook our differences of opinion on whether it was a touchdown or not than to have to do a couch faceoff, even if it only lasted a few minutes. It killed the flow of the game.

We had a lot of fun playing paper football when we were kids. It was quick, easy, there weren’t a lot of rules, and no one got hurt. You didn’t need to have a deep blue sky and warm sun to play, but there’s just something about a crisp, sunny, Fall afternoon in New England that just begs you to go outside and enjoy the sights, sounds and smells of the season.  

Working Things Out

We’ve been hearing a lot lately out of Washington about the debt limit and how it needs to be raised or we’ll face a catastrophe in the United States. I’m not really into politics and I’m not going to get into a political debate or discussion, but doesn’t this seem just a bit ridiculous to anyone else out there? Each political party has stated their side of the argument and made sure everyone knows why they’re right and the other side is wrong. Each side has pulled the “we’re doing what’s best for the taxpayers” slant while saying the other side is going to destroy our great nation. The arguments for whatever side people are on or lean to ring true for them while the other side just doesn’t get it. As the deadline looms neither side is ready to give an inch.

Maybe these guys need to go back to their childhood to remember how to do just that. My parents taught me how to work things out, how to compromise and how to get along. Now I’m not talking about compromising on something that is illegal, immoral or unethical, but on something that is preference or opinion. I’m not going to compromise on murdering someone (“Well, if you just shoot them once in the head, it’ll be painless, so that’s not as bad as strangling someone so they slowly die from a lack of oxygen.”), but I’ll compromise on how much work I do around the house (“Honey, I’m not doing ANY work around the house - no cleaning, no cooking, no laundry.” We’ll see how far that gets me with my wife!). Through many sibling quarrels, my parents taught us how to work things out.

It’s actually quite simple. First you present what you think, what you want or what you want to do. While you’re doing this, I listen to all that you’re saying. If necessary, when you’re finished, I ask questions to make sure I understand you. Next, I present what I think, what I want or what I want to do. While I’m doing this, you listen to all that I’m saying. If necessary, when I’m finished, you ask questions to make sure you understand me. Notice there’s no pointing fingers, no belittling the other guy and no yelling and screaming. At this point, neither person is likely to just give in and do exactly what the other person wants. That’s why you’re having this discussion in the first place. Now comes the compromising. My parents taught us to find some common ground and go from there. In my example about housework above, my wife and I would see that we both want to live in peace and harmony, and that we want to be able to spend some time together. So I would compromise and do some of the work. Everybody wins; my wife doesn’t have to do all the boring housework and I get to live.

There was one last alternative that my parents employed if we were fighting with each other or just wouldn’t get along with each other. They would make us sit on the couch facing each other and we couldn’t get off it until we were ready to get along with each other. You may be thinking, “That’s so mean!” Actually, it wasn’t. Most times, within about two minutes we were smiling, laughing and totally forgetting why were sitting on the couch instead of doing whatever it was we wanted to do. Sometimes, just seeing the silly look on the other person’s face was enough to make me laugh. Have you ever noticed how funny most people look when they’re being uncompromising, stubborn and angry for no good reason? Take a look in the mirror next time you’re like that. I caught my face in a mirror once when I was being stubborn and angry and it wasn’t a pretty picture. The key to the couch faceoff was that neither of us got our way, but it didn’t matter because we were friends again.

So here’s my proposal to the House and Senate on the debt issue. Take a page from my parents’ book and lock the decision makers in a room and tell them that they can’t come out until they’ve come up with a compromise that everyone can live with. Not one that everyone is totally happy with, because that’s not going to happen. But I think they can find some common ground and come up with something that both sides are mostly happy with. That’s how compromise works. Maybe they’ll even come out smiling, laughing and forgetting exactly why they were put in there in the first place.