Turkey Bowl 36

“Men do not quit playing because they grow old; they grow old because they quit playing.”

-Some Dead Guy

Owen had knee surgery on Friday, so the past MVP will be unavailable for the Big Game.

Seeing Owen go in for knee surgery, I couldn’t help but think about my own knee surgeries almost 40 years ago. Thankfully, surgical techniques have improved, so his prognosis is much better than mine is. But we all knew that.

While Owen was in “Pod B”, which is where the day surgery patients go, post-surgery, he was tended to by a nurse who explained to us that pain is more difficult for younger people because as we get older, we realize that pain is just a part of life, and therefore we’re better able to deal with it.

He also told us about how his father when he was a kid had seen Babe Ruth play at Fenway, and that after the Babe was traded to New York, he’d still visit Southie to see his “girlfriends.”

But back to the nurse’s explanation of pain. What a depressing thought that is!

It totally reminded me of the Turkey Bowl, however.

Perhaps I should talk to a therapist about this, but I associate the Turkey Bowl with pain. If you’ve read any of these newsletters over the years, you know this to be true. Two years ago, I believe, I began with a musing on cane shopping.

And that makes me worry that I’ve turned these missives into the complaints of a middle-aged white man. And I worry that when the disgustingly athletic youth who’ve malevolently infested our game read this they will have every preconceived notion about old people confirmed. But then I remember that I am posting this on a blog and linking to it through Facebook, so they’re probably not seeing it at all. And I also remember this: This is your future. This is my present. I have the power of the pen, so suck it.

“Cause myself just told myself, ‘You the motherf*****’ man, you don’t need no help.’”

          -Some Rapper

Bravado aside, this could be a year of total humiliation for the grown-ups. Let’s face it: we’re older and slower. Last year the game was relatively close, and it came down to the final play. However, unless we play a 20-minute game with no forward passes allowed, our days are numbered. I’m amazed every year when Kesin yells at me for how poorly I’ve laid out the field at how small it seems when the game starts and how big it feels when I blow a coverage in the second half. And that’s what adulthood is like when it comes to athletics: we’re all just finding ways to cope with our limitations. Just a few years ago, the notion of losing to the children was laughable. Then it became a possibility, but really just a 16-seed-beating-a-1-seed possibility. Then it happened. Now it’ll be hard to derail that freight train.

I used to be able to count on winning on Thanksgiving Day. Now it seems like the only thing I can count on is that whatever Mr. Gefken posts on Facebook is a total lie.

Monday I had the pleasure of going to the dentist to get two fillings. I was in the chair, in a prone position, on my back, looking up at the hygienist on the left and the dentist on the right. The hygienist, mid-procedure, says to the dentist, “So, my mother wanted me to ask…what kind of wine should she have for Thanksgiving?”

“Hmm,” the dentist said. “That’s a tough question. What type of wine does your mother like?”

“Oh, she’ll really just drink anything,” the hygienist replied. “I mean, anything. She doesn’t care.”

I’m all for workplace chatter, but this seemed a bit odd. I should mention that my dentist does own a local winery, so the question isn’t as out of left field as it might seem, but couldn’t the hygienist have waited to ask her question? Then again, I was interested in the answer, so I kind of appreciated it.

His answer: A light red, like a cab franc, or a dry or semi-dry Riesling. There you go: the first-ever Turkey Bowl newsletter wine tip.

Why mention all of this? Well, as he finished drilling and filling my teeth, he explained to me that one of my teeth was in bad shape. If it acts up again, he said, the best move would be to just extract it.

I’ve reached the age where I discuss getting teeth pulled with my dentist. And earlier this year I had my first colonoscopy. I had it in the morning, and I ran a 5k race in the afternoon. True story.

Speaking of Life Events, Ian MacDonald’s girlfriend had a baby a few weeks ago, Raelyn, so that means that this year we’ll have our first grandfather participating in Doug MacDonald. Finally, we can say that he plays like a grandfather because he is one. Ian’s living out in Pullman, WA, now, so it’s unknown if he’ll be in Jersey on Thursday. (Update: Ian will not be in attendance.)

I saw Ian and Doug out in Seattle in August after Pearl Jam played SafeCo field. We connected randomly—I only knew Doug was going because he posted it on Facebook. We met at a bar after the show. When I got there Doug was talking to a guy who’d grown up in Westfield. Small world.

I was at the Pearl Jam show with my girlfriend, Kate. Kate’s playing in the Turkey Bowl this year. She’s feisty. You have been warned.

Next up on the Life Events list: by kickoff, O’Reilly’s will have closed. John Nulty pointed out that this is the second iteration of O’Reilly’s that we’ve seen close. The Turkey Bowl has outlasted O’Reilly’s.

The big news in Massachusetts as I write this is that the first legal sales of recreational marijuana have started, with a store in Northampton. There was a line around the block to get in this morning, the first sales day. One of the biggest local proponents of recreational cannabis (apparently some people consider “marijuana” to be a racist term) taught Owen’s health class last year.

Thursday will be the 36^th edition of the Turkey Bowl. The first one happened in Memorial Park in 1983. The next year we shifted over to Orchard Park. I love the Turkey Bowl. It is, without a doubt, one of the highlights of my year. And these newsletters, which I’m pretty sure I’ve written every year since 1985 or so, comprise my most consistent record of lifetime achievement.

Sam Shelffo is 19. Jasper Kesin is in his second year of college. Lulu Kesin is figuring out where she’s going to college next year. Jack Nulty just turned 22. Michael Nulty is growing a mustache for Movember. Kelly Nulty is a top high school swimmer. There will be a whole host of O’Neills at the field, and Lars will keep bringing in disgustingly athletic family members and hangers-on.

The more things change, the better the Turkey Bowl gets.

At the end of October, we all saw the horrific stories about yet another mass shooting, this time in Pittsburgh at a synagogue. Michael Nulty goes to the University of Pittsburgh, and coincidentally John and Kathleen were visiting Michael when the shooting happened. John was near the synagogue and saw the police cars rushing to the scene. When I learned that he was that close, I asked him if he was okay. He texted his reply, “Just another day in America.”

There’s a lot of truth in that, just as there’s truth in what the nurse said, that as we get older, we get used to pain. And that sucks.

But I’ve been thinking a lot recently about how the Turkey Bowl is another day in America, too. It’s a joyful celebration of friendship, friendly competition, family, and love. It’s been going on for 35 years, and if it has to go on for another 35 years to give us the hope we need to combat the horrors we’re seeing seemingly every day, then count me in for every one of them.

“If you think I’ma quit before I die, dream on.”

-Some Rapper

I look forward to seeing everyone at 10:30 on Thursday at Orchard Park. Dress warmly!

Peace.

The 2017 Newsletter: It's a Long One

I’ve taken up yoga.

Sorry, I’ve learned that the correct phrasing is to say that I’ve begun practicing yoga. I started practicing because of a lengthy bout with hip/back/butt pain that basically had me limping for most of the spring. One of the great things about living in the Northampton area, aka “Happy Valley,” is that there are many options when it comes to advancing one’s personal health goals. No need to be a slave to Big Medicine! We’ve got acupuncture, acupressure, reiki, yoga, chiropractic, therapeutic massage…you get the picture. This great thing is also one of the worst things, because if you happen to mention to someone—anyone—that you’re experiencing an ache or pain, they’re going to tell you about their guy or woman who’s the “absolute best” at whatever voodoo they’re into. When you have too many choices, sometimes you have no choices.

Anyway, I ended up going with yoga and chiropractic, mainly because they were next to each other in one of the many cool old mill buildings we have around here and they were relatively inexpensive. The chiropractor, Roger, was nice enough, and he complimented me for having two legs that are the same length, but whenever I’d go in for an adjustment, he’d poke and prod and point out the areas where I was tight. Which was pretty much everywhere.

At yoga, Kellie, the instructor, doesn’t focus on my limitations. She flatly refuses to recognize them. She’ll tell me to move my legs here and my arms there and I’ll chuckle and say, “you’ve got to be kidding,” but she never is. And then she’ll walk over and twist me into the proper position if necessary.

Roger’s adjustments didn’t help my back. Kellie’s yoga did. So I’ve kept on going. However, it’s important to note that the pre-Thanksgiving yoga class was canceled, so I’m going into the game at a bit of a disadvantage.

If yoga stops working, I may have to turn to the TB12 Method. It’s probably a totally physiologically sound plan and besides, Tom could use the money.

But here’s a thing about yoga: you can’t win at yoga. Kellie chastised me for trying to be better than the other beginners in the Beginners Class I started with. (I’ve since graduated to a more advanced class, thank you very much.) This could be a mind trick, like the one hand clapping riddle, and the fact that she told me I can’t win yoga has me alternating between saying, “What’s the point, then,” and, “Oh, yeah? I’ll show you!” Or it could be true.

What does this have to do with the Turkey Bowl, you’ve probably asked more than once by now? Well, I’ve been thinking about this a lot, especially during Shavasana (look it up), and I think the same philosophy can be applied to the Turkey Bowl. You can’t win the Turkey Bowl. None of us can.

This part is directed specifically at the kids who pulled off the improbable last year and beat the adults: you shouldn’t put so much emphasis on winning. It’s not about winning. It’s about the camaraderie and being thankful. So it would be okay if you took it easy on us old folks on Thursday. You have to start looking at the bigger picture.

The bigger picture for me is that I ran into Bill Small at Dave Faherty’s lovely and amazing memorial service and he told me that he’s almost back to walking without a limp after the unfortunate Achilles incident last year. The bigger picture for me is that the thought of running around playing football for a couple of hours on Thanksgiving morning terrifies me. So I have an announcement to make:

I am retiring from the Turkey Bowl.

I’m 50 years old, and I’ve cheated Father Time long enough: November 25, 2032, will be my last game.

That means I’ve only got 15 Turkey Bowls left.

Oh, and this is the 35^th Turkey Bowl. In honor of that, here are 35 (36, really) random ways the Turkey Bowl has made my life better (and they all go beyond this transitory notion of “winning”). The Turkey Bowl has:

1.       Given me another gluttonous meal on Thanksgiving

2.       Accelerated my curmudgeonly-ness by making me hate whippersnappers who can run and throw and catch all day

3.       Made me wonder, who takes the picture every year and is therefore not in it?

4.       Allowed me to teach my kids the South Mountain School song as we travel past my elementary school every Thanksgiving

5.       And embarrass them annually by singing it

6.       Allowed me to never host a Thanksgiving dinner, or cook a Thanksgiving meal

7.       Given me the pleasure of verifying once a year that I am, in fact, getting slower

8.       Convinced me that Doug MacDonald has the worst hands

9.       Made me appreciate the Orchard Park neighbors for tolerating our annual invasion

10.   Reminded me that, yes, the Wolf and Pig are still a good call

11.   Made me kick myself for listening to that crazy lady who demanded we stop trimming the trees. How many years ago was that?

12.   Made me appreciate the longest-running tradition in my life

13.   Let me go over the new Tappan Zee Bridge

14.   Made me ppreciate Texas Weiner Taylor Ham Egg and Cheese sandwiches.

15.   Made me appreciate the entire MacDonald clan.

16.   Taught me that anything can happen (Owen contributed this one)

17.   Taught me that Bill Small should never play in the Turkey Bowl

18.   Shown me that Michael Nulty talks a good game. Emphasis on the talk.

19.   Proven John Nulty has the softest hands.

20.   Proven that Turkey Bowl huddles are wildly inefficient

21.   Frustrated me because we should have filmed every one of these games

22.   Taught me to appreciate Lars’ understated steadiness

23.   Made me appreciate that Doug is a master motivator

24.   Who’s not afraid to do the dirty work on the line

25.   Proven that Thanksgiving is the best day of the year

26.   And that Maplewood and the surrounding area was a pretty great place to grow up

27.   Shown that Jameson’s pairs well with Taylor Ham

28.   Reminded me that Lulu Kesin might be the most underrated veteran player out there.

29.   That having Ian MacDonald on your team is the best.

30.   That Mississippis are better than alligators

31.   That the center should never be eligible.

32.   That Lars has a very athletic family. Something about skipping a generation, I guess.

33.   That playing against my children makes for great dinner conversation later.

34.   That a set of orange cones was probably the best investment I’ve ever made.

35.   That Sam Shelffo is a stealthy pass rusher.

36.   That YouTube is NOT a suitable substitute for a doctor when it comes to treating shoulder injuries.

Let me conclude with a brief story. Many people in my family love black olives, and they have long been a staple of the Shelffo Thanksgiving table; the table would not be fully set without a serving dish of black olives. One year, after a Thanksgiving Eve party at the Zoo Pub, I went home feeling a bit peckish. To satisfy my hunger, I ate two entire cans of black olives, which meant we had none for dinner. My mom was unhappy, to say the least. And I had to fight through the crowds at the A&P on Thanksgiving, post-Turkey Bowl, wicked sore and tired, to get replacement olives or be drummed out of the family.

My mom passed away in August. She’s been on my mind as I worked on this newsletter. She lived in Maplewood for 20 years, after living in South Orange for 20 years, and the fact that she still lived in Maplewood made me feel like less of an interloper during our annual invasion of Orchard Park. Every year when I’d see her after the Turkey Bowl, she’d say the same thing to me: “Well, I didn’t hear any sirens, so I guess the game must have gone okay.”

May the game go okay on Thursday.

10:30, Orchard Park. See ya there!

Newsletter 2016

A few years ago, when I was bitching to someone that Thanksgiving was quickly approaching and I hadn’t yet written the newsletter—sorry, that’s Newsletter, with a capital ‘N’—that someone said to me, “you know, you don’t have to write it if it’s causing you so much stress.” 

I know that person was just trying to be kind. But clearly, they didn’t get it. Which is part of the reason why I’m not friends with them anymore. For real. 

But I’m not going to lie, because the Turkey Bowl has always been about essential truths and Orchard Park is one of the few places left in the world where no one lies, or else the wolf and the pig will terrorize your dreams. I’m not going to lie about the fact that the Turkey Bowl does cause me stress, in a variety of ways. For instance, right now I’m stressing not just about the fact that this Newsletter is late or that the Jersey Turkey Bowl Blog has disappeared, but about the fact that I have no idea where the cones I use to mark the field are. I moved over the summer and I can distinctly remember where the cones USED to be, but I have no idea where they are now. And the clock is ticking. 

And I think this is the stress talking, too, because lately I find myself thinking a lot about Lou “The Toe” Groza, who either had one of the world’s greatest nicknames of one of the worst. I can’t decide. He was a kicker for the Browns in the 40s, 50s, and 60s who made everyone realize how important kicking field goals could be. In an era when teams hit fewer than 50% of their field goals, he made almost 70% of his, not infrequently from more than 50 yards away. Oh, and he also played offensive tackle. He retired when he was 44. 

(When I was at Drew University, there was a guy working out there hoping to get a tryout as a kicker with an NFL team. He’d be in the fieldhouse and I’d be in the workout room and every time he kicked it, there would be an earth-shattering ka-boom. I think about that guy from time to time and how he never made it. How freaking loud would the kicks have been from someone who did make it?)

And I find myself thinking a lot lately about George Blanda, who I first learned about back in the days when I half-heartedly collected football cards. I committed to memory the facts from his card:  that he scored 2,002 points in the NFL and that he played in four decades, the 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s. He retired when he was 48. 

Another George Blanda fun fact: he was the first-ever player taken in a fantasy football draft, way back in 1962. That I learned today, not back when I was collecting football cards.

And I find myself thinking lately about Gordie Howe, who played professional hockey into his fifties but then I remember that I really don’t like to spend a lot of time thinking about hockey.

So the subtext here, in case you haven’t figured it out, is that I’m turning 50 in a few weeks. John Nulty turned 50 last week. Doug turned 50 like 10 years ago. In other words, we’re all getting old. When we started this tradition, the Cold War was still raging, the Soviet Union was a thing, and Bunny’s had a payphone on the wall which in a few years a number of people would use to get ahold of me, since mobile phones back then really weren’t that mobile. Sonny’s bagels were less than a quarter back then! We could get two slices and a soda at Roman Gourmet for, like, two dollars!

Do you hear how old I’m sounding right now?

So I have to ask the kids: why haven’t you beaten us yet? I’ve heard some rumors that Mike Nulty is going to take a pass this year, because he says the game isn’t really that competitive. Honestly, I think if he didn’t play, it would probably be a case of addition by subtraction, but saying the game isn’t competitive when you’ve NEVER WON would be like the winless Cleveland Browns (a second Browns reference?) forfeiting the remainder of the season because they didn’t want to embarrass any of their opponents. 

Owen says that this is the youngsters’ year. He says they have the sweet combination of growth spurts and chemistry on their side. 

Rumor has it that Lulu Kesin is going to be watching from the sidelines this year. 

There may be other Turkey-Bowl-related rumors out there, but I cut myself off from Facebook and other social media a couple of weeks before the election because I couldn’t take it anymore, so I’m out of the loop. 

Meanwhile, I haven’t thrown a football since last year. And I’m cowering at the idea that soon I’m going to be entering my sixth decade on this earth. (I’ll wait while you youngsters use your fingers to figure that one out.)  I have this weird clicking in my knee that my doctors say they can’t do anything about. And I’ve been battling a bad back for months. And don’t even get me started on my prostate.

But the point is, long ago the Turkey Bowl became more than just a football game. Now it’s a ritual. I consider it to be a successful year when I can make it to the field on Thanksgiving morning and check in with my fellow truth seekers. I savor the annual pilgrimage we all make to Maplewood, where we have the traditional meal of Taylor Ham, egg, and cheese sanctified by beer and whiskey, and then engage in ceremonial combat. 

Last year I didn’t play in the Turkey Bowl. I showed up in street clothes to avoid even being tempted to play, because I was recovering from having run the Philadelphia Marathon and my right knee was the size of a cantaloupe. I’d forgotten that I didn’t play, but recently Sam reminded me. He called me out on it, too, in an inspired bit of shit-talking, along the lines of marathon, shmarathon: you wimped out, Dad.

 

George Blanda would have played. The Toe would have kicked my ass and then played. 

So I’m playing this year. 10:30 a.m., Orchard Park. I’ll be there, with cones. Come one, come all, old and young, winners and winners in waiting. 

They say exercise is a good way to combat stress. We’ll see.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Archives Return!

Look there! To the right! Archives!

A Blog Re-born!

A funny thing happened on the way to the 33rd instance of The Turkey Bowl: Our blog disappeared! Poof! The archives have gone missing, too. Thirty-three years of newsletters, down the Internet drain.

Who says that whatever you post on the web stays there forever?

We've reached out to the powers that be to see if they can help, but it's Thanksgiving Week and we can't just sit around waiting. So, here we are! Look for the 2016 Newsletter within a couple of hours.

2012

Turkey Bowl XXX

This past September, I began teaching an 11^th 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 11^th grade.  And now I’m teaching 11^th 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 30^th Turkey Bowl, I ask myself. What if my recollection is wrong? What if it’s not the 30^th 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.