Turkey Bowl XXX
This past
September, I began teaching an 11th grade English class as part of my
regular job duties. In addition to teaching The Great Gatsby and
reading the tortured prose of adolescent analytical essays, I find myself in a
frenzied and hormonal whirlwind of teenage high school angst. And since
Sam turned 13 last week, I find myself more and more often suffocating under a
cloud of Axe Body Spray and anger.
What does this have
to do with football, you might ask? Well, it occurred to me as I sat down
to create this year’s newsletter that the first Turkey Bowl took place when I
was in 11th grade. And now I’m teaching 11th grade. So
in a sense, I guess I’ve come full circle. Or something like that.
In another sense, this is the time of the year when I question my own version
of history and my ability to do math. How can this be the 30th Turkey
Bowl, I ask myself. What if my recollection is wrong? What if it’s not the 30th Turkey
Bowl? And then I go over the story in my own head so that I can
repeat it with conviction to anyone who asks: the first game was played
over Thanksgiving weekend in 1983 when a group of us gathered in Memorial Park
to play football after a night of debauchery at a bar in Newark whose name
escapes me (help me, Glosh!) watching Walter HK Tore. In 1984, my senior
year of high school, we played in Orchard after watching Joe “Basadile” Santasiere
score on a kickoff return in his final high school football game. I distinctly
remember Joe showing up at Orchard to watch us play later that day, too sore
from his game to join ours.
In 1985, we were
all in college, and the game was well on its way to becoming a tradition.
In 1987, this newsletter debuted. The rest, as they say, is history.
But on the occasion
of such a momentous anniversary, I longed for more proof. And that’s when
I turned to my journals. Some of you may be remember that back in the day,
I was a bit of a diarist. I began keeping a journal (not a diary or a
beer log, but a journal) in 1982 and kept it up pretty regularly for a number
of years. So I turned to the archives, the papers that scholars
will undoubtedly comb through some years from now for clues about…something or
other. (And that’s only if they find my manifesto, which is pretty well
hidden.)
Anyway, I dusted
off the notebooks from high school and turned to the entries from Thanksgiving
1983 and found---nothing. No mention of Walter HK Tore, no mention of
Memorial Park and no mention of football. Nothing. No worries, I
thought: it makes perfect sense that I didn’t write about it after the first
one, because it wasn’t really the first one until the second one happened, anyway.
Right? So I opened the next notebook and turned to the entry for
Thanksgiving 1984 and found—nothing.
WTF?
I did find these
quality, teen-angst driven entries, though. These are unedited, though I
did redact some names:
9/17/82
Columbia
won against East Orange 5-0. ----- scored. Saw ----- at the game
and she saw me and didn’t say one word to me. Bitch. ---- was at
the game also. Dick.
----‘s
grounded for two months and he says that he’s never drinking again until he’s
17. Right.
Tuesday,
10/12/82
Another
boring day.
Wed.
10/13/82
Another
boring day.
10/27/82
Did physics
homework for three hours. Went to the library and found nothing on the
Navajos. Shit.
11/1/84
Columbia
soccer lost to West Essex in the first round of the State Tournament. ----,
----, and ----- all missed penalty kicks. Last night, ---- had a kind of
consolation/birthday party, which was fun. They weren’t as bummed as they
could have been, but ---- and ---- really [screwed] up.
12/3/84
Now about
Kesin. Well, for some reason…Rich was talking about swallowing goldfish.
Then, fortunately or unfortunately, ---- had goldfish. These weren’t your
little carnival type goldfish, these were five-year-old, five-inch-long
goldfish. Kesin ate one. He didn’t just swallow it, he chewed it
up. I was pissing at the time and was bummed that I missed
it.
Well,
Sunday Kesin and I went to the Union Market and bought her two goldfish.
Then we went to bring them to her house and right when we pulled up out front,
we lost it. We all just started cracking up. It was very hard keeping a
straight face bringing it to her. It was funny as shit. The only thing is that
now when people hear about it, it will all be out of context. That sucks.
There are dozens of
other close-to-the-event recollections of other infamous incidents from my
past. Many of the names of those involved now populate my Facebook friends’
list. Which says something about me—or about Facebook. What, I’m not absolutely
sure.
But where is the
stuff about Turkey Bowls of yore? Maybe I shouldn’t dwell on it so
much. I should just accept what I wrote down; after all, the record is
the record, and I shouldn’t lament an honest document. There is more to
life than the Turkey Bowl, isn’t there. But it’s a bit of a bummer that
there isn’t more evidence.
Yesterday, Owen
asked, “What time is our game on Thanksgiving?” My heart soared at his
use of the first person plural possessive pronoun (I’m teaching English,
remember?). And I realized that the evidence, the history of the game, is
right there in front of us. It’s part of us. And not to get too schmaltzy
or anything, but the game is now a part of our kids’ lives, too.
In our annual
neighborhood Fourth of July block party softball game, my father would always play
catcher. We usually played with one of those big, 16-inch softballs, the
ones they use in the Midwest that don’t require any gloves when you’re playing
the field. Dressed in shorts, loafers, and a plain white t-shirt, he’d
use his big hands, minus half a digit, of course, and field the position with
the proper amount of seriousness, secure in the knowledge that his glass of gin
was only a few feet away on the curb, waiting to give him a between-innings
boost. My favorite part was when he would shadow the runner to first
base, just in case there was an overthrow from third or short.
What will our kids
remember about us when they tell stories of the Turkey Bowl? What are
they saying—or writing—about us now? I’ll probably never know, but that’s
much more interesting than what I may or may not have written—in cursive, mind
you—in my bedroom while listening to U2’s Bad and waiting for someone to
call me on the one land line our house had.
I like to think
that I have grown a bit since them. As proof I offer the most recent reviews of
the Turkey Bowl from my journal. Note the marginally better syntax and
the notably less anger.
2004
The Turkey
Bowl. We had our lamest showing ever—six guys: Nulty, Shelffo, Novak
against O’Neill, MacDonald, and Kesin. We got our asses kicked, too,
because Brian was channeling the mad qb skills of Bart Starr. That on top
of the fact that we were just too slow to keep up with Kesin made for a
lopsided game. But I had a great time running around and the weather was
awesome: 70 degrees and sunny. And as soon as the game was over, it
started to rain.
All of that
running caught up to me, though. My knees are swollen and my thighs are
tight. My toe nails, of course, feel like they’re going to fall off at
any minute. The worst thing, though, is this new injury I have. At
some point during the game, I got hit in the ribs, just below my right
pec. And it kills. It’s a sharp pain that really kicks in when I
sneeze or cough or when I try to push up with my right arm. I think I may
have cracked a rib and when I woke up today and it still hurt a lot, it got me
thinking about going to the emergency room today. We’ll see how things
progress.
2005
The real
game officially ended when we started inserting our children into the
game. First came Doug's kids and then eventually all of them got
in. We did this because Jacky Jenks was upset that Doug's kids weren't
allowed to play. I tried to explain to her that it wasn't merely a matter
of inserting one kid, that doing do represented a fundamental shift in the
Turkey Bowl. I also wanted to kick some more ass. Whatever.
2006
I had a
couple of good plays, but I didn't leave the game with a good taste in my mouth.
2007
No mention.
2008
When Zusi
showed up and went on their side, the game was effectively over. I
couldn’t throw very well and the footing was slow, so I couldn’t keep up with
anyone. At halftime, the kids took over the field and when halftime was
over, it became a mixed kids-and-adults game that didn’t have any real focus or
purpose. But the kids had fun, and that’s the important part. Even
if the game broke up early and left me needing to go for a run
afterwards. That’s definitely the first time that’s happened.
2009
The Turkey
Bowl was great. As predicted, there were only five adults, but we had a
lot of kids, so we worked them into the game from the beginning. My team
ended up losing, but Owen won the MVP with his performance: sack of Doug
MacDonald for a safety, an interception, and a touchdown reception. The
MacDonald bloc of votes carried him over the top, and they don’t understand his
talents, but it was a legitimate vote. I’m touched. Sam had a good game,
too. Everyone had fun and the weather was beautiful. A good day.
2010
The game
was the first official kids-grownups game, with Brian taking over as Pied Piper
for the young’ns. I had fun playing, though I was a bit too timid for my own
tastes a couple of times, and of course I’m fat and slow, too, so that hurt me
a bit. But I threw a couple of nice touchdown passes and I made some
plays on defense. It was all good. Sam and Owen had fun and the
game ended in a tie. Mr. Hogenauer showed up yet again for the second
year in a row—I just remembered, wasn’t Ken supposed to be hosting them in
California this year?—as well as Rachel and Beth. It was a good
game.
2011
I think
yesterday was one of the more pleasant Thanksgivings I’ve had in recent
memory. We left a little later than I would have liked, but we made it to
the game on time. The weather was balmy and I played in shorts. It was
the first official kids vs. grownup game, with the Kesin kids, the Shelffo
kids, two of the Nulty kids, and two MacDonald kids. Then Lars showed up with a
whole passel of kids, and it was game one. The adults won pretty easily,
because youth can’t overcome 29 years of playing together. I felt fat and
slow out there on the field, but I had a good time and made a few good
plays. Owen played well, and Sam did, too, but there was too much chaos
on the kids’ team for anyone to really shine.
They’re not
exhaustive reviews of the game, but they do a good job of capturing my feelings
from the game. That’s all I really need, I guess, a reminder that the
Turkey Bowl is a good time.
The Turkey Bowl
allows us to annually reconnect with each other and walk down memory lane while
creating new stories to tell. That’s the very definition of tradition, I
suppose. I hope that this year’s edition will allow those of us hit hard
by Sandy or other sad events to focus on something more fun.
I hope to see
everyone Thursday morning at 10:30 in Orchard Park.
