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Gabe, Jake, Herbie and I were all trying to figure out about the Civil War. Danny had got me Civil War toy soldiers for my birthday. He said that the war was a hundred years ago. The one team was blue and the other was gray. Since the one team was gray I asked him if they were Germans, but he said they were Americans, \u201cConfederate\u201d Americans. The blue ones were Americans too, \u201cUnion\u201d Americans. That sounded really interesting.<\/p>\n
Herbie said he knew about the Civil War because he had lived in the \u201cSouth\u201d before he came to Ann Arbor. He said the Confederates were the \u201crebels\u201d, and all the kids he knew thought they were pretty neat, because they were better soldiers and had better generals, like \u201cRobert E. Lee\u201d and \u201cStonewall Jackson\u201d, though that second guy got killed in a battle.<\/p>\n
Jake said his dad had told him about the Civil War and read him the book, \u201cThe Red Badge of Courage\u201d, about this older boy named Henry who was a soldier in that war. Jake said that Henry was on the \u201cUnion\u201d side and in his first battle he got scared and ran away and found these other soldiers who were wounded but were going back to fight in the next battle. Henry pretended he was wounded too, because he was \u201cashamed\u201d that he was a coward and ran away. But then these other Union soldiers came who were running away from another battle and Henry got in their way and one of them hit him on the head with his rifle. Then Henry went back to the other guys in his army \u201cunit\u201d and they helped him because they thought he was wounded in that first battle. Then they had a third battle and Henry didn\u2019t get scared this time and did what he was supposed to. Finally in the fourth battle he was really brave and carried the \u201cUnion\u201d flag when the other guy carrying it got shot. All the other guys thought he was good now and none of them knew what coward stuff he had done before.<\/p>\n
The four of us decided we would find out as much as we could about that War. We went to the Bach School library and found that \u201cRed Badge of Courage\u201d book. We also found another book with pictures and maps of Civil War battles that was really neat. The pictures had guys shooting, guys on horses called \u201ccavalry\u201d, dead guys, and cannons. In World War Two the war had been in that \u201cEurope\u201d place, where a lot of our \u201cancestors\u201d came from. But in this war, the battles were in our country, though not around where we lived. But Herbie had lived in this other place called Virginia, and he said there were A LOT of battles there.<\/p>\n
In first grade, because I liked dinosaurs so much and got other kids to like them too, Miss Zimmerman decided to do a \u201cunit\u201d on dinosaurs. But when Gabe, Jake, Herbie and I asked Miss Candem if we could do a \u201cunit\u201d on the Civil War in our second grade class, she said there wasn\u2019t enough time, because we had too much math, reading and writing that we had to learn. She could tell we didn\u2019t like what she said, and that made her kind of worried.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese reading, writing and math skills you learn in the early grades\u201d, she said, \u201cAre such important building blocks to you being able to explore all these interesting things, like the Civil War, when you get older.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHow much older?\u201d asked Gabe.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ll study the Civil War in Eighth Grade American History\u201d, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cEIGHTH!\u201d said Gabe, really loud. Then he thought about the subtracting and said, \u201cThat\u2019s six years from now!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m sorry\u201d, she said, \u201cBut that\u2019s how school works. The Board of Education tells us what we need to teach each year so our students receive the best possible education.\u201d She could tell that we still weren\u2019t happy.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut you are SUCH good students\u201d, she said, \u201cI HATE to say no to you pursuing your own learning interests. How about I let you use your free-reading and library time to work together on this?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut we don\u2019t sit together in class\u201d, said Gabe, who seemed less worried than the rest of us about talking regular to grownups and even teachers like they were kids. \u201cAnd you don\u2019t let us talk during free-reading\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n
She looked worried again and blew air out of her mouth. \u201cI\u2019ve got an idea\u201d, she said, raising a finger in the air, \u201cHow about during free-reading you can use the table in the back of the room. I\u2019ll get four chairs from the supply room and you four can sit back there and QUIETLY discuss your Civil War topic, based on what you\u2019re reading.\u201d<\/p>\n
She shook her head and said, \u201cI\u2019ll explain it all to Mrs. Sanderson if necessary. And when you\u2019re in the library, just find a table together in the corner somewhere and try to speak very quietly, and I\u2019ll explain to Miss Carlton, she\u2019s the librarian, what you\u2019re up to.\u201d<\/p>\n
So we started doing that. During free-reading time the four of us got up from our desks and went and sat at the table in the back of the room. We had \u201cchecked\u201d books out about the Civil War from the Bookmobile and the regular library and brought them with us to school. There were so many interesting things to figure out. Why would goodguy Americans fight against each other like they were on different teams? Why did the North team win and not the South team? We had trouble reading some of the words in the books, so we would ask Mrs. Camden for help. We also took those Civil War books out at recess time and sat at the metal picnic table and looked at them and read them. Amanda would come over to look too, and some of the other boys like Theo and Matthew.<\/p>\n
Mary and Diane came over to the table too.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat are you boys up to?\u201d Mary asked. I liked the way she said boys like she llked us but we were the other team.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think you\u2019re supposed to be doing school stuff during recess\u201d, said Diane.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not school stuff DIANE\u201d Herbie said, \u201cSo HA HA!\u201d He was teasing Diane back for saying \u201cha ha\u201d to us all the time.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re figuring out stuff about the Civil War\u201d, I said, \u201cIt was a hundred years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou girls don\u2019t care about that stuff\u201d, said Herbie, \u201cBecause you\u2019re girls. Girls aren\u2019t soldiers.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBoys aren\u2019t soldiers either\u201d, said Diane fiercely, \u201cMen are soldiers!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah but women aren\u2019t soldiers either EITHER\u201d, Herbie said, being fierce like Diane, \u201cSo HA HA again!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHERBIE\u201d, Diane said really loud, starting to cry a little bit, \u201cYou\u2019re the worst person in the WORLD!\u201d She ran off.<\/p>\n
Mary looked at Herbie and said, \u201cDiane\u2019s mom worked in a factory making airplanes during the war. What did YOUR mom do to help with the war?\u201d Then Mary turned and ran off after Diane. I watched her catch up with Diane and put a hand on her shoulder. Mary was being good to her friend, I thought. That was really nice of her. I don\u2019t think Herbie saw that or even wanted to see that.<\/p>\n
Jake and Gabe had been looking at a book all this time, like they didn\u2019t even hear us talking to Diane and Mary. Jake finally looked at us and said, \u201cThis book says that Robert E. Lee was going to that West Point army school and could have been a general for the Union army, but since his state of Virginia was on the Confederate side, he decided to be a general for them.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis other book\u201d, Gabe said, \u201cSays that this one guy was in the Confederate army but his younger brother was in the Union army. Can you imagine shooting at your own brother?\u201d<\/p>\n
I couldn\u2019t imagine, but it was an interesting thing to maybe pretend sometime.<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
As I walked home from school up Fifth Street thinking about the civil war, a noisy car drove by with older kids, maybe those college kids with the top parts of their bodies sticking out of the windows. They were waving those dark blue \u201cMichigan\u201d flags with the yellow \u201cM\u201d in the middle.<\/p>\n
They all yelled at the same time, \u201cThink they\u2019re tough. Think they\u2019re great. Go to hell Ohio State!\u201d One of them saw me walking and said, \u201cGO BLUE!\u201d That\u2019s what a lot of older kids and grownups said when the Michigan team was going to play. Tomorrow they were playing their biggest badguy team, Ohio State, at the stadium. Mom said it was the \u201cbig game\u201d, the last game of the year, against their \u201carch rival\u201d. She said that she and dad wanted to go, but the tickets were too expensive because they would have to \u201cscalp\u201d them, whatever that meant. But the game was also going to be on TV. I couldn\u2019t believe it. Something in our town was going to be on TV!<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s an arch rival?\u201d I asked her.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell\u201d, she said, \u201cA RIVAL is another team that you play against a lot. And it\u2019s usually a good close game that sometimes you win but sometimes they win. Maybe they won the last time you played but you really really want to win this time to get even. Your ARCH rival is your biggest rival. The one team you really REALLY want to beat each time you play them.\u201d<\/p>\n
I remembered from some books like Treasure Island that if badguys lost to the goodguys they would want to \u201cget even\u201d or \u201cget revenge\u201d and beat the goodguys the next time.<\/p>\n
\u201cLike get revenge?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cKind of like that\u201d, she said, \u201cBut hopefully in a more positive competitive way. Not like you want to hurt them or humiliate them, but just show them your best game and beat them.\u201d I nodded, but I wasn\u2019t sure I liked beating people. I liked playing sports, like baseball, but I played because it was fun, not because I wanted to beat the other team. But I guess in a war you had to beat the other team, because if they beat you then really bad things could happen and they might even kill you. I didn\u2019t even want to ask her what \u201chumiliate\u201d meant, it sounded really bad.<\/p>\n
I\u2019d been thinking all day at school about setting up a whole Martian world in the basement with Martian people made out of Tinker Toys, or maybe they\u2019d be dinosaurs. And then the Earth people come in their spaceships, they would be the soldiers. Excited about my pretending idea, I ran down the stairs into the basement and stopped on the bottom step and looked around. David was the only one there and he was sitting in dad\u2019s office quarter of the basement by dad\u2019s desk. He had ALL the Tinker Toys, Lincoln Logs, soldiers and wooden trains set up EVERYWHERE. In the quarter of the basement where our toy shelves were, the quarter where the TV was and dad\u2019s office quarter. He saw me and pointed under dad\u2019s desk where he had set up some dinosaurs.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s the dinosaur cave\u201d, he said, \u201cGo-zilla lives there too. He\u2019s in charge of the dinosaurs.\u201d He still couldn\u2019t say the whole \u201cGodzilla\u201d word.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd look\u201d, he said, \u201cThe train goes all the way across the basement.\u201d<\/p>\n
He wanted me to like it. ALL of it. But I used to have all the big pretending ideas and he would either help me with one small part, or want to wreck everything with \u201cGo-zilla\u201d. But now, how could I do the Martian idea I\u2019d been thinking about all day with all the toys already set up? His stuff didn\u2019t look like any of my Mars ideas!<\/p>\n
I made an extra sad face and said, \u201cAll day at school I was thinking about setting up a whole Martian world here in the basement, but you\u2019re already using everything.\u201d He looked at me worried, then thinking.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can play with the building set and the Rector set\u201d, he said. He didn\u2019t say the whole word \u201cErector\u201d.<\/p>\n
That was the first time he\u2019d ever said anything like that to me, like he was the older brother and he was in charge. I\u2019d spent all day with grownups in charge of me at school and now this.<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t you want to do a pretend Mars with me?\u201d I asked, \u201cIt\u2019ll be really neat.\u201d Then I thought he probably didn\u2019t even know what Mars was yet because dad had not read him the Tom Swift books. Dad was reading us that \u201chistory of the world\u201d book.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can play that next time\u201d, he said, \u201cLet\u2019s play this way this time.\u201d I felt myself getting mad, and I started looking at what he had made and seeing all the ways it wasn\u2019t as good as what I could make, so he would see why I should be in charge.<\/p>\n
\u201cYour train track just ends\u201d, I said, \u201cAnd doesn\u2019t go in a circle at the end so the train can turn around and go back the other way.\u201d<\/p>\n
He looked worried but then he said, \u201cThat\u2019s okay, it goes all the way across the basement. I used all the track things. Look how far.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s play this way\u201d, he said again, walking up to me, and I could feel myself getting more mad. All day long my teacher was telling me what to do and I couldn\u2019t say no, but now I could.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo\u201d, I said, \u201cI don\u2019t want to!\u201d I could see his face look sad, and then look mad.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s no fair\u201d, he said, \u201cI always play the way you want to!\u201d<\/p>\n
I looked up at the ceiling and shook my head. \u201cBecause you don\u2019t know how to play things right yet\u201d, I said, \u201cYou\u2019re still too little. Look how you made that fort, the walls don\u2019t even hook together. What kind of a fort is that, the bad guys can just go around the wall and get in!\u201d I could see him getting sadder and madder as I said that.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re not very nice\u201d, he said, with a loud mad voice that sounded like mom. She could say stuff like that to me because she was my mom, but he couldn\u2019t, because he was just my little brother.<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t talk to me like that!\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
And then he hit me on the arm with his fist. He had never done that before. I was really surprised that he did that. How dare he, I thought.<\/p>\n
So I pushed him, before I did any other thinking about it. He kind of stepped back and his foot stepped on one of the wooden trains on the track and it made him fall backward on his bottom and then his head fell back and hit the metal beam thing in the middle of the basement with a clunk noise. He looked at me afraid and then I could see a red thing on his head above his eye. The red part got redder and blood was dripping down. He looked surprised and then scared and started crying really loud.<\/p>\n
I figured I had done something bad, and now I was afraid that mom and dad would find out and wouldn\u2019t let me do stuff by myself anymore. I really wanted them to think I was good. David was still crying loud and put his hand on the red part of his head, saw the blood and got even more scared. I decided I would run upstairs and tell mom that David fell down and hurt his head, before David could tell her what happened.<\/p>\n
So I ran upstairs with David still crying behind me. Mom was in the living room doing painting.<\/p>\n
She looked at me really worried and said, \u201cWhat happened?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDavid tripped and fell and hit his head\u201d, I said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh Jesus\u201d, mom said, running by me in the kitchen and down into the basement. I ran just behind her, worried what David would say to her. She saw him with the blood on his head now dripping down his cheek.<\/p>\n
\u201cDid you fall and hit your head on that damn beam?\u201d she asked, \u201cI knew that thing would be trouble!\u201d<\/p>\n
David gave me a fierce look, but sad too, and just nodded and said, \u201cI fell and hit my head!\u201d<\/p>\n
Mom told David to sit down and told me to run up to the hall closet and get a couple washclothes. I ran upstairs wondering what else David was going to say to her while I wasn\u2019t there, and came back down and then mom told me to take them into the laundry room and put water on them from the big gray sink. I did, and brought them back, dripping with water, worried that she would find out from David what I did. But she thanked me and pressed one of them against David\u2019s head where he was bleeding.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere you go sweetie\u201d, she said, \u201cI hope that feels a little better.\u201d He was still crying but he nodded. \u201cLooks like it\u2019s only bleeding a little bit, but we should probably take you to the doctor to get it checked.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mom looked at me again. \u201cRun up to the bathroom and get the bandaids and the mercurochrome\u201d, she said. I ran up again and got them from that \u201cmedicine chest\u201d in the bathroom above the sink, then I ran back down. When I was running it was easy not to do much thinking about what happened.<\/p>\n
When I came back she looked at me worried and asked, \u201cWhat happened?\u201d I didn’t want to tell her that he hit me and then I pushed him.<\/p>\n
So I just said what he had said plus a little more about why he fell, so mom would think I was trying to help. \u201cHe stepped on the train by accident and fell and hit his head on that beam.\u201d She pushed her lips together and nodded.<\/p>\n
Finally, when the blood stopped dripping, mom put the mercurochrome on the red part and made the area around it all red too. David said that that hurt, but mom said that even though it did, it would make it feel better soon. She found two big bandaids in the box and put them over the red part.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere ya go, kiddo\u201d, she said, \u201cPatched up for now.\u201d She held both his hands and had him stand up. He was still crying but only a little bit.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow does the INSIDE of your head feel?\u201d she asked, \u201cYour eyes look okay. Do you feel like you\u2019re going to fall down?\u201d He shook his head.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh good\u201d, she said, \u201cLet\u2019s go over here and sit on dad\u2019s mattress.\u201d<\/p>\n
David stood and walked over to dad\u2019s little bed thing and sat on it. Mom watched him walk, carefully. \u201cYour walking looks good\u201d, she said, \u201cBut I still think we should run you over to the doctor just to double check.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dad came home from \u201crunning errends\u201d and took David over to the \u201cdoctor\u2019s office\u201d. I remember going to that doctor place. It was on this bigger street with some houses and some buildings but lots of trees. He was this strange grownup who wore a big white jacket and used all these tools that looked like Tom Swift stuff. I remembered going there when I got those \u201cmeasle\u201d spots on my body, and then David got them too. He also gave you these \u201cshot\u201d things in your shoulder or even your bottom. THAT was pretty strange!<\/p>\n
So with David gone I sat on the basement floor on the rug that was now in the TV part of the basement, which was like the rug in dad\u2019s office part of the basement except it was a different color and had different lines, boxes and dots on it, what mom called a \u201cpattern\u201d. I looked at all the toys David had set up everywhere, and thought about changing everything to the way I wanted it to be. I<\/p>\n
It was hard to even think about what I wanted to make and where I would put it, with everything out and already set up. I figured I would have to put all the Tinker Toys back and the Lincoln Logs back in their tubes and the train tracks back in their wood box that said \u201cCutty Sark Scotch Whisky\u201d on the side, whatever that was. Then I could look at the plain floor and figure out what Mars stuff to make and where it should go.<\/p>\n
But I figured I better not change anything, just in case when David got home he would be mad about it and then tell mom or dad what I did. I had to make sure he was extra happy with me, at least for a while.<\/p>\n
Mom came down the stairs and sat down on the floor next to me.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell\u201d, she said, \u201cYour dad called from the doctor\u2019s office and said that David\u2019s okay. They\u2019re patching him up and they\u2019ll be home in a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then she looked at me with a worried face. I got worried that she might have figured out somehow that I\u2019d done something bad to David.<\/p>\n
\u201cAre YOU okay?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n
That question always worried me when mom asked it. When OTHER grownups asked it, even dad, they just wanted you to nod or say \u201cyes\u201d, so they could think about other things that they really wanted to think about. But usually when mom asked, she wanted to know if there was a REAL answer instead, and she would look at my eyes and it felt like she would see what I was really thinking, and I didn\u2019t want to tell her what I was really thinking about pushing David. So I just looked at her and got really worried that she might somehow make me tell her.<\/p>\n
I was trying really really hard to make all the grownups think I was really good, and always did good and smart stuff, when I was at school and when I was just by myself, or with other kids and no grownups around. I figured if they alway thought I did good and smart stuff, they would keep letting me do more stuff by myself, which is what I always wanted, specially now that I was going to school and my teacher was always telling me what to do. So I felt like I had to say something or she might figure out the real thing I was thinking or somehow make me say it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was just thinking about school\u201d, I said. I hadn\u2019t REALLY been thinking about school just now, but I did think about school a lot. Usually in the morning when I had to wake up and go there.<\/p>\n
\u201cAh\u2026 okay\u201d, she said, \u201cSo how\u2019s school going?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re doing lots of reading and writing stuff\u201d, I said, \u201cAnd lots of math too.\u201d I used that \u201cmath\u201d word that mom used a lot and always seemed happy when she was talking about it.<\/p>\n
She smiled and asked, \u201cDo you enjoy math?\u201d Grownups said that \u201cenjoy\u201d word sometimes instead of \u201clike\u201d. Kids never said it, because it sounded like you were pretending to be a grownup to be in charge of everybody.<\/p>\n
\u201cAre you figuring out all the adding and subtracting and carrying and borrowing okay?\u201d she asked, \u201cBecause I\u2019m always happy to help you with that, but only if you want me to.\u201d<\/p>\n
I nodded and said, \u201cI get almost all the answers correct, except when I mess up and write down the wrong numbers in the problem.\u201d I made sure not to say \u201cright\u201d instead of \u201ccorrect\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cGreat\u201d, she said, laughing through her nose a little, \u201cYour mother loves math, so she\u2019s happy to hear that.\u201d She talked strange that way sometimes, like she was pretending she was somebody else talking about my mom.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just that our teacher has us do so many problems\u201d, I said, \u201cAnd do so much penmanship and spelling stuff that\u2026\u201d I wasn\u2019t sure whether to say the rest because I would be saying bad things about school, and she and dad liked school so much.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt gets boring\u201d, she said, and she breathed in, puffed out her cheeks and blew out the air between her closed lips that made a whooshing noise. Then she shook her head and clicked her mouth.<\/p>\n
\u201cDrill\u201d, she said, \u201cIt\u2019s a military word for doing something over and over again until you get it perfect. If I recall, next year it\u2019ll be your times tables, over and over. \u2018Ad nauseam\u2019 as they say.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAd nauseam?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah\u201d, she said nodding, \u201cIt means doing the same thing so many times it makes you sick.\u201d<\/p>\n
I wondered if that\u2019s the way school was going to be more and more as the grades got higher. But I was afraid to ask her about that, because if she said yes, and I still had to go to school, that would be really really bad. Better to pretend things were okay than know they were super bad. I think she figured out what I was thinking.<\/p>\n
\u201cSchool won\u2019t always be like that\u201d, she said, \u201cYou just have to learn some basic reading, writing and math skills, which can be boring. But then you can APPLY them to a world of really interesting things. Algebra, history, science, literature. Just hang in there kiddo.\u201d<\/p>\n
That was good to hear. I mean I could do all that school stuff, I just didn\u2019t want it to get to be boring ALL the time. I guess just SOME of the time would be okay.<\/p>\n
Then mom asked, \u201cSo how\u2019s it going with your brother? He seems to be getting into a new phase where he\u2019s got the whole basement set up with all the toys. He doesn\u2019t just see what you\u2019re playing and play along anymore. I would think it might be hard for you to adjust. Maybe a little of what they call \u2018sibling rivalry\u2019, like you two are competing with each other.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mom had just told me about that \u201crivalry\u201d thing, and I kind of knew that \u201ccompeting\u201d word. It had to do with sports and being on different teams.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell\u201d, she said, standing up. That was another word grownups said a lot when they wanted to be in charge. Kids never said \u201cwell\u201d like that.<\/p>\n
\u201cTomorrow\u2019s the big game\u201d, she said, \u201cARCH rivalry!\u201d I nodded.<\/p>\n
\u201cGo Blue!\u201d she said, raising her fist in the air. I nodded again.<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t say anything because I was too busy thinking about why David decided not to tell mom and dad that I pushed him and that made him fall and hit his head. I wanted all kids to be on the same team, but David was making it hard for me to be on the same team with him. But maybe he still wanted us to be on the same team with me. I still had to figure that all out.<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
The next day was the football game. All around our house people \u201cparked\u201d their cars so they could walk to the Stadium. They were mostly grownups though some had kids with them. Most of them were wearing clothes with the blue and yellow colors that were for Michigan. Mom and dad called the yellow color \u201cmaize\u201d instead. A few of the people had the red and gray colors of the other team, Ohio State. When they were walking near each other, some of the people wearing blue and yellow yelled out bad things to the people wearing the red and gray, and then they yelled bad things back. It kind of felt like they were real enemies, though mom had said they were just \u201crivals\u201d.<\/p>\n
Dad watched the game on the TV and listened to it on the radio in the basement at the same time. He said he liked that Bob Ufer guy who told you about the Michigan games on the radio. I watched some of it too, and it was strange listening to that guy on the radio talking about the stuff that was happening on the TV.<\/p>\n
Football games on TV were harder to figure out than the baseball ones on TV. In baseball, even the real games on TV, the guy on one team was pitching and all the other guys on his team were in \u201cthe field\u201d behind him, except for the catcher guy. The guys on the other team would take their turns trying to hit the ball and run around the bases to score \u201cruns\u201d until they got three \u201couts\u201d.<\/p>\n
But in football, there was that main \u201cquarterback\u201d guy who was in charge, but all the other guys on the team did different stuff and it got really confusing when it all got going. Dad had told me you got four chances, called \u201cdowns\u201d, to get \u201cten yards\u201d, which he said was how far it was across the basement. If you didn\u2019t get that far after three tries you usually \u201cpunted\u201d, and your guy kicked the ball so the other team got their turn. Or maybe if you were almost that far you would \u201cgo for it\u201d on the fourth chance. If you got \u201cten yards\u201d then you\u2019d get four more chances. But then all this other stuff happened. There were these \u201creferee\u201d guys with striped shirts. Dad said they were like the \u201cumpires\u201d in real baseball games who told you if it was a \u201cstrike\u201d or a \u201cball\u201d and if you were \u201cout\u201d or \u201csafe\u201d. But these \u201creferee\u201d guys did all kinds of things all the time, like they were really in charge of the game instead of the guys on the teams.<\/p>\n
I mean when KIDS played football in the park it was pretty simple, you got the ball and ran with it to try and cross a line to make a \u201ctouchdown\u201d, and the kids on the other team would try to touch you to make you stop. Or you would try to throw the football to someone else on your team so THEY could run with it. It was kind of like playing \u201ctag\u201d, and the guy with the ball was \u201cit\u201d. I played sometimes, because that was what all the other kids, mostly older, were doing. The older kids would play sometimes with just a few people on each team, even just two, but they really liked it when there were more kids on each team, because that made it easier to pretend it was like real football.<\/p>\n
So in the football game on TV that that guy was talking about on the radio, the Ohio State team did really good most of the time, and the Michigan team only did pretty good sometimes. The Ohio State team always had more points than the Michigan team. I could tell dad was getting really worried, and when the Michigan team messed up, like when a guy dropped the ball the quarterback threw to him, dad would even get mad. He\u2019d bang his hand on the arm of his chair and even say swear words, like \u201cdamn\u201d or \u201cwhat the hell was that\u201d. And when the Ohio State team finally won the game, fifty points to twenty points, dad seemed sad and mad and worried all at the same time, and didn\u2019t want to do any of the stuff he\u2019d been doing before the game started.<\/p>\n
Mom liked the Michigan team too, but she didn\u2019t get worried or mad about them. She watched some of the game too, while she \u201cironed\u201d and folded clothes. And when Michigan guys did good things she would say stuff like \u201call right\u201d or \u201cnice play\u201d. And when they messed up she might even say \u201cdamn\u201d or \u201cugh\u201d. But she never seemed worried about the game like dad was, or ever got mad. And when the game was over she said, \u201cWell, we\u2019ll get em next year\u201d, and dad would look at her like she shouldn\u2019t say that. It was like mom thought they were \u201crivals\u201d and you only won sometimes but dad thought they were more like enemies and you had to win all the time.<\/p>\n
And just like it seemed that girls and boys were on different teams at school, sometimes it felt like MOM AND DAD were on different teams. They would get mad at each other, and sometimes dad would try to \u201cbeat\u201d mom by trying to show that he was right and she was wrong. And mom sometimes would talk to her women friends about dad, and her friends would talk about their \u201chusbands\u201d like they were on the other team too. I wondered if dad talked to his men friends about mom, but I had never heard him do that.<\/p>\n
Paul\u2019s mom talked about grownup men a LOT, though she called them \u201cboys\u201d most of the time, like they were kids and not grownups. When I was over at Paul\u2019s house and we were in his basement, we could hear her talk on the phone up in the kitchen. She would laugh and say \u201cboys will be boys\u201d, but I don\u2019t think she was talking about kids, she was talking about Paul\u2019s dad and other men. She would talk about all the stuff they did that she thought was silly or strange. Like when she said on the phone that Paul\u2019s dad was \u201cin love with his Triumph\u201d, which was one of those little \u201csports cars\u201d like Molly\u2019s dad had. Paul\u2019s mom would laugh and say that he was \u201cprobably making out with it when he was alone in the garage.\u201d I think \u201cmaking out\u201d was another word for doing all that kissyface \u201clove\u201d stuff, like the older kids sometimes did when they thought no one could see them in the lilac bushes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Gabe, Jake, Herbie and I were all trying to figure out about the Civil War. Danny had got me Civil War toy soldiers for my birthday. He said that the war was a hundred years ago. The one team was blue and the other was gray. Since the one team was gray I asked him […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[1777,13,1774,1773,1799,1800,1775],"class_list":["post-7577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-1960s","tag-ann-arbor","tag-autobiography","tag-childhood","tag-free-range-kid","tag-growing-up","tag-memoir"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t