FOOTBALL

Written in 1986

I walked to my typewriter to write something creative and undoubtedly profound, and there in my typewriter was a sheet of paper with the word FOOTBALL at the top.  My son had started on his writing assignment.  Football is a good thing to write about.  It smacks of action and excitement for some people.  But me?  I could sleep through a Packers game if I were sitting on the 50-yard-line.  (Just ask my husband!)

When I learned that we were moving to Wisconsin, I didn’t think about football at all.  I thought about snow and cheese.  Pretty soon I learned that my first thought was supposed to be the Green Bay Packers. It seems to me that a person needs to know millions of facts in order to enter a conversation about football, or any team sport.  You have to know things like whether the Packers and Bears and Brewers and Badgers and White Sox (or is it Red Sox?) are baseball, basketball, football, or soccer teams, and whether they are college or pro, and even who their coach is.

I don’t know why my son writes about FOOTBALL while I don’t even understand it.  Maybe it’s the difference between male and female brains.  Maybe it’s the abstract vs. the practical mind.  Maybe it’s just that you can’t teach an old mom new tricks.