My Love of the Game

Another season is getting ready to start. I can feel the excitement starting to come over me, and not even the heat wave that we're feeling can stop me from digging out all the hats, gloves, and scarves with my team logo on them. I can't wait to pull on my boots and head out to the stadium with friends to scream and yell for my team. I love everything about it; Football Season.

 I've been a fan since I was little girl. It's my favorite time of year and I always feel a great sense of disappointment when the season is over. I smile to myself as I pull out my handbag, matching belt, and socks. My LUCKY socks. The tradition of this just feels like family to me and it's all because of my father. I'm sure many fans started out thier life long love of the game because they were introduced to it by thier father. I will never forget the first day that I sat down with my father to watch a game.

I remember watching him sitting there. He would be sitting in his recliner with a beer in his hand, the TV in front of him tuned in on a football game. This was a scene I’d been watching since I was old enough to remember. Every fall weekend the same thing. He would yell at the TV, waving his arms in anger at some such something going on. He would yell that the referees were idiots and were most likely blind too.

There was only one telephone in our house and it was mounted on the wall in the kitchen that was adjacent to the family den where my father would watch all of his games. He'd hated it if the phone rang during his game. If it did he always yelled that we better keep it short or call our friend back later. But even with all the yelling going on he always seemed happy to me during these Sunday afternoons, which is why I liked to watch him. I very seldom got to see my father when he was happy.

On this particular day I really, really wanted to just talk to him. We never talked, not really. In my world Dad talked and I listened. When he spoke it was law; there was never really any room for personal observation or banter. But today, I needed to have an honest to god conversation. I wanted to tell him so many things.

I needed to tell him that I finally did well on a math test. He’d been so angry with me when he’d seen my last report card. He’d taken off his belt and for about half an hour I’d been punished. He told me that I was doing this just to piss him off and that it took much more work to flunk the class than it did to just do the work.

I did the work. I got a C and I was thrilled!

I wanted to tell him about Driver’s Ed. I was 15 now and I wanted to get my learners permit and I wanted to ask him if he would sign my release form.

I knew that he would probably say hell no, but I wanted to TALK about it.

I wanted to talk to him again about getting braces. Most kids that I went to school with hated it when they had to get braces…but I was longing for them. The kids made fun of me all the time and it was starting to really bother me. Especially now, that I had a boyfriend. I hated the way I looked with my jutting teeth and jagged smile. I wanted to be normal. The last time I said anything about it he said that they were way too expensive. I remember him coming home with a new motorcycle a few weeks later.

I wanted to tell him about Tommy. He was starting to press me pretty hard about sex and I was really confused because I loved him and wanted him to love me back. He kept saying that if I really loved him then I would, but he would always follow it up with “If you won’t I know plenty of girls who will”. Did that mean that he loved me…..or not?

I needed to talk to my father.

But as I sat there, watching him from the floor where I was sitting behind him, I knew that the day that I could talk to him may never come. And so I got up and went over and waited…..and when a commercial came on I asked him if he wanted me to get him another beer. He said yes, and as I brought it to him I asked him why the referee would do the hand signals. He started to explain to me why, and what each hand signal meant and before long he was telling me about the statistics of the quarterback and the teams winning streak. He spent the next two hours telling me about the traditions of college football and why it was so much better than the NFL. I sat there and took it all in.

He was talking. I was listening.

That’s pretty much how it went with Dad and I……. until he was gone.

As I sit now and reflect back on that day, I have to smile, just a little.

My father may never have helped me solve my problem with Tommy. And he may not have known that I finally got that C on a math quiz or that I spent the better part of the next 10 years wishing I'd gotten those braces. But he did give me something that I still cherish to this day.

He gave me my love for the game.