With all the negative energy swirling around NFL world these days (too many empty seats, too much hocus-POTUS), I must confess some very positive energy: my love for football. There’s no two ways around it. It’s embarrassing sometimes when I think about how much I love the game of football, but I have to admit it, I love the game of football.
When I was a kid I used to watch my father squatting in front of our tube-type television with his hand on the circular knob as he flipped the channels around from one college football game to the other. Of course he had to get down in front of the TV because this was a time in history, post-Civil War and pre-remote. That is all to say… while it may not be in my DNA, it is in my heritage to “love and cherish football until death do us part” and in this one way, I did exactly as my father before me. Including channel surfing.
Dad’s Old Helmet
In the hallway closet my parent kept our game of Scrabble, Monopoly, some 78 LPs and a box of old time goodies like my father football helmet. My two brothers and I used to fight over it and pretend like we were playing football with in on. However, much sooner than later we’d whip it off, because it made our heads too hot. The only thing I can think of, that is older, or has more wrinkles, than my father’s helmet, is the president’s babushka.
Rolled-socks Football
One memory I have of being a kid is when we moved from a house in Montclair, California into our new home in Claremont, California — and besides the fact that this was very confusing — was that we used to play rolled-socks football. We didn’t have any furniture in the living room or the dining room of our new house for awhile so, we’d ball-up a pair of socks by tucking them into themselves and our mother would allow us to play football on our knees and the fireplace — at the end of what seemed like a giant room — was the goal line. Of course the game would always get so out of control that someone would get hurt or hit their head on the edge of the bricks of the fireplace (and damage the fireplace of course). Good times!
Foto Electric Football Game
A couple of years later, we were on a long car vacation — So Cal to Texas to Iowa to Colorado and back again — when we came to visit an Uncle of my fathers… while were were there (and this is my only memory of that trip) we were invited into an attic where there were toys and something called a “Foto Electric Football Game.” Back then, the word “Electric” in the title of a product was popular: an electric fan, and electric iron, an electric can opener… so when we saw a box with the word “electric” attached to the word football, we thought we’d died and gone to heaven. Although I was less than ten years old, this is where I fell in love with the mental side of the game and learned that if you were “smart” while playing the game, you could beat older, or even more physically superior, opponents. Foto Electric Football had game cards you slid into the machine — one player had all the offensive play cards while they had the ball and the other person had all the defensive play cards while they were on defense — and after each player selected a play card it was inserted upside down into the top of the game board and when the light switch was turned on under the game board, it revealed the results of the two players schemes for that play. I began to notice that some players (like my older brother) would choose plays that were typical plays on specific positions on the field. By learning his tendencies, I learned that the opposition always has tendencies and used that information to my benefit later in my sports life.
Boy oh boy, I loved playing that game as a kid… and my love for the game grew.
Folded Paper Triangle Football
Of course, if you’re like me at all, you’ve probably played the tabletop game of football with a folded triangle piece of paper. Players sit across the table from each other and you try to slide the triangle over to the other side of the table and you score a TD when the triangle hangs off of their side of the table. When you have scored a TD like that, you get to kick an extra point, That’s when one player holds their thumbs up to resemble a goal post and the kicking is done by holding the triangle upright while flicking it through the finger-uprights. Yes, I’ve played my fair share of tabletop football… mostly as a youth. Directions: 1) player one pushes the triangle across the table, 2) the triangle stops with part of it dangling off the side of the table and scores 6 points (a TD) in the process and, 3) the scoring player holds the triangle upright and flicks it through the other players goal posts (his/her fingers held in the upright position to score an extra point(see below).
Church Bulletin Football
Another memory I have of “football” while growing up, is on Sundays. No, not Sunday afternoons… but Sunday mornings at church (which I did not enjoy, for the most part). Here’s a game I made up and if you still go to church and if they pass out a service bulletin then you’re in business as long as you have a pen or pencil with you. You can play against yourself or if you have a neighbor sitting next to you, paying as little attention as possible like yourself, then you can challenge them to play too. You start at the top of the page and pretend like your pencil line is a football carrier and the object is to score a TD by running the straightest route from top to bottom but you can’t pass through words, only between them. Here, in this example above, are a couple of different colored lines so you could see the two lines on this bulletin. Red is the winner. Of course, this game only takes a minute or so and consequently, you’ll have to listen to what the preacher has to say after all.
Friday Night Cruising
In high school, right after the football game on Friday night, we used to take our father’s Buick Electra 225 out and cruise the main thoroughfares of our home town, which included Foothill Blvd which ran right by our school and is better known to the masses as Route 66. Another popular spot was a street called Towne Avenue, which not only had an International Dairy Queen Inc. but a relatively new fast food joint called Taco Bell featuring 19 cent tacos (a favorite of my older brother Barry). Consequently, those were hot locations to visit and revisit so we could all do what was most important to high schoolers: looking at each other. That’s probably why the song called, “I’m a Girl Watcher” by The O’Kaysons, became so popular. Of course, none of us were really cruisers… but we could pretend real gud ya know. The place I recall best is one of the first McDonald’s Hamburger stands where some kids would hang out… but you know none of that could have happened without football. Honest Injun.
How about your football memories? Have any special associations to this game we love?
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