The musings of a madman...

You know, the things we did in the course of our childhood would in current times be considered damned stupid at best, and get our parents locked away for neglect/abuse at worst. The topic of today is Street Football. As kids, we would stake out a long stretch of road in the neighborhood, generally one long block or two tied together, totally what we estimated as several (50ish-75 yards long) and picked teams, usually 5-on-5, to play football. The rules, as the 32 year-old me remembers back on 20-25 years ago remembers, changed VERY wildly based upon our imaginations. This was not terribly dissimilar to Calvinball . How goes it? I will start by explaining the basics… 5 players on each side (more if the street was pretty wide or if people just HAD to play)* A player would be considered “downed” if he was touched with 2 hands – but more on this in a few* 4 downs to score or get a first down 2 completed passes equals a first down No “punting,” you scored or first down, or give the ball aw

Strange how we spend all 12 months of the year working on our yards when – at least in NC – we are allowed only about 5 or 6 actually enjoying the fruits of our labor… I moved into my house August 2009 and the yard was a weedy mess, considering the house had been empty for several months, save for the contractors who did the work on getting the new carpet/paint/appliances/etc. together for them to sell the house. That being said, we were bare minimum as it related to the yard and I would have my work cut out for me, and I didn’t bother taking a SINGLE picture of the yard for the whole of the first year we were in the house. [ Phlip note – the brutal weather we had last fall and winter also led to this, more on that in a bit] From August 2009 through October 2010, I cut the grass about once a week and that was it, knowing that I would be doing some more extensive work in the coming months. Then it started raining once a week – sometimes days at a time – for the whole of October through

Fun fact: On June 22, 2011 there was not a SINGLE baby item in my house… Then I left work on June 23, 2011. As ever, I jumped in the car, picked up my mother and took her home. As I walked in the house, Katie was ending a call and advised me that she was pregnant. To those who know what we WERE planning, this was a ton of bricks on the both of us. For the entire of the prior 7 months, Katie was planning for a bariatric surgery and had a schedule date of 06/28. The pregnancy test that had (now) cancelled surgery was a part of the pre-surgery performed on EVERY woman scheduled to have it. As active and consenting adults, the disappointment of this happening when it happened was one thing, but the urgency of planning for a baby overrides such sensibilities. We went to premarital counseling immediately upon receipt of the news and started planning. OB appointment set for the following week to establish how far along we are and begin some REAL planning for this.

The year in question here will fall anywhere between about 1987 and 1994ish… From 87-91, you will find me in the floor in the den in my grandmother’s house, homework on my right and radio on my left. From 91-on, I am at a round table sitting in my bedroom with the arrangement of my homework and radio remaining the same. The radio has a recordable cassette tape in it, set to “Record” and left sitting on pause, so as to not miss a song I might like when it came on the radio. The first of this period would see the radio set to “Power” 97, and from 1990 (I think) it was set to 102JAMZ – which these days is known as the worst “urban radio station known to humanity. Keying on yesterday’s discussion of cassette tapes and recording on them, the “Pause Tape,” not to be confused for something that might include ghey-sounding one-liners from someone currently on the radio after which one might say “pause,” was the largest part of enjoying music back in those days. Before the advent of the i