~It's that time of year...~

Football Season!

I was thinking about a reading that I did for my church's Valentine banquet when I was 15 or 16 years old. The funny thing about me doing it was that I knew absolutely, positively nothing about football. So the "ditz" I was pretending to be...was really me! LOL

Here's the reading:

Shall I tell you about the very first football game I ever saw? Of course I didn't see it very well because Harry couldn't afford very good seats. In fact the seats he could afford were so far back we found it better to sit on a very sturdy branch that grew over the edge of the fence...But even this was crowded. I was constantly moving over to make room for others up there: six crows and three woodpeckers.

I must admit that Harry did everything possible for my comfort. We had popcorn, peanuts, hot dogs, ice cream bars. Best of all, Harry promised to pay me back the very next day...

Harry taught me the idea of the game. A man has to carry the football from one end of the field to the other. Isn't that a perfectly silly thing to make a game out of?...But there they were--full grown men running, falling, kicking all over the place just to have the ball for a few seconds...Why, they could have saved their money so each player had his own ball.

My biggest confusion came when I tried to tell our team from the enemy team. Harry said that our team was the one with the football. But pretty soon the other team had the ball and I was all confused again.,

One time I looked down and there was a player carrying a bass drum instead of a football. I asked Harry about it and he said it was the half. Well, it certainly looked like a whole drum to me...Then it was the musicians' turn to play. Of course they didn't play football...they played music...I guess someone had kicked the football over the fence because all the players were gone quite a while looking for it. But pretty soon they found it and the players came whooping back again.

I asked Harry why all the players got in a big secret huddle just before each play. He looked at me kind of funny. But when I begged and begged he finally broke down and told me what the big mystery was. It seems that the enemy team was planning to play a dirty trick on ours. They were trying to plant fifty tons of dynamite down in a corner of the field. Then they were gong to try and lead our team over the buried dynamite and boom! the game would be over...I asked Harry if that was strictly according to the rules but he just smiled mysteriously, and said nothing. Funny thing, though, as much as the teams plotted to blow each other up, nothing every happened...This little incident certainly made me look up to Harry. He was the only one there who knew the secret. He knows just about everything! And he tells it all to little old me!

He even explained to me about the men with the striped shirts. They were afraid of football and just stood off to one side and played their own little game--whistle blowing. Every time a player fell down with the ball these funny little men blew their whistles like mad and made crazy little motions with their arms. Harry said it was all part of the game.

I finally got the game figured out. You see, each player has a number on his back. If player number 67 catches the ball his team scores 67 points; while if player number 88 catches the ball his team scores 88 points. Somehow this doesn't seem fair to players with little numbers like 12 and 15, does it?...It was an exciting game all the way. The final score was five thousand, nine hundred and thirty-five to zero.