Football, anyone?

As my father enjoyed football, we grew up watching football. While we all had our favorite teams (Bears, 49ers, Broncos, Titans), we were willing to watch any match up.

Usually this time of the year our family gets together for a meal and the 8 boys to hit the gridiron, although sometimes a cousin, neighbor, and now sons join in the fray.

The weather is immaterial - we play in mud, snow, grass, or whatever the day affords. We are older now. Some of us are slower and


smarter. Well, maybe slower anyway! The ladies question the smartness. Today we hit the field and after picking teams (picture one) we were underway. I shortly hit my brother Joe for a nice gain (picture 2) Before he blew out his knee (he can rotate his patella between his ankly and waist), he was truly an incredible athlete. Long ago in a game on a 5th down and the whole field to go, I hollered to the defense I was throwing to Joe rather than punting. Amidst quadruple coverage, he leaped up, tipped the ball to himself, and scored. The knee has slowed him a little, but he is still the favorite target.



We get a little too excited and rowdy and the young kids still are a little intimidated to get too close. We tried handing the ball off to Jesse and have him run behind us in an old "Flying Wedge" play, but he got scared and got sacked for a loss. Here we have him doing something (picture 3) I am not sure exactly what. Surely celebrating a splendid play by his father.


Picture four reveals a great defensive play on my part, in which I rushed in and sacked my brother Mike for a big loss. He "slipped" prior to the

sack, although I suspect he actually fell rather than face my furious rush. I gave him a nice slap on the hinder to accentuate my continued domination, even in my old age!

When will we quit playing? My wife has no sympathing for my aching back and sore knee. She seems to think that one day I should grow up and put away childish things. I have just too many fond memories playing with my brothers while we were growing up. If you throw in my sister (who plays like a girl) we grew up with enought for a baseball team. I have a lot of fond memories and even a few injuries left from an endless number of historic skirmishes. I suspect that 40 years from now we will be out with our canes and wheechairs arguing whether or not we tottered across the line. I doubt that we will have gained any sympathy from our wives yet at that point, but I sure hope they will come out and help us find our dentures after we are done!

There was a very grievous conclusion to the 2006 skirmish. Wishing to take a few photos of our athletic prowess, I set my digital camera on top of one my brother's vans. With a shock of dismay, I recalled my action right after they had left. Two miles down the road I located the camera, which was sadly worse for the wear. Evidently foreign camera makers cannot make a camera suitable to withstand the rigors of falling six feet at 60 miles an hour onto the blacktop.

As we opened up our Bibles for our evening Bible study, we read Proverbs 1 and in defining the words discretion and judgment I used my nearly four hundred dollar lapse of judgment as an example to define what good judgment and discretion mean. I knew better than to trust my absent minded brain to leave it there, but really, could I risk missing a play if I were to take the time to set it safely inside?! No way! "Hike!"