© 2003 Dan Sherman
Into every man's life comes a transitional time when you shift from being
your father's son to your own man, meaning you are supposed to be decent,
upstanding and capable of changing a light switch without plunging the
county into darkness.
That time recently came for me when I traveled to New Jersey to attend the
funeral of my father, a son of Russian immigrants who climbed the corporate
ladder of a pharmaceutical company on hard work, hard liquor-fueled dinner
parties, and a firm belief in the American Motto of, "Take two of these and
mortgage your house when you get the doctor bill."
After the funeral, I felt the need to revisit my boyhood hangouts and
reconnect with a time when my biggest decision was whether to chug my
Budweiser from cans or bottles. So I called up an old buddy, Robert, and
together the two of us, with less hair on top and more insulation around the
middle, took a trip down memory lane.
We landed in Maplewood N.J. at a place called Orchard Park. We stood like
two misty ghosts, bowed and beaten knights from King Arthur's Court n'
Drive-in, as we surveyed the shelter house. That roof kept us dry during
torrential summer showers as we grossly inflated the profits of
Anheiser-Busch. It was still painted the same mucous-like green, a color
unknown in the natural world.
There were the tennis courts where I played hapless Bozo to Robert's Pete
Sampras on crisp fall Saturday mornings, and the basketball hoops where
endless afternoon games were played and where elbowing, choking and eye
gouging were required moves.
There was the field, a stretch of mud, crab grass, sharp stones and bits of
broken Jack Daniels bottles that to us seemed as manicured as Augusta
National.
Through a chilly drizzle, we could almost see our high school rag-tag forms
and a dozen friends playing "Crazy Football" -- a variation on tag football
where no matter who had the ball or where you were on the field, you could
pass in any direction to a teammate. This resulted in marathon games that
blended the kindness of a rugby match with the seriousness of a "Three
Stooges" movie.
As I think now about those wild games, the laughter, the tears, the broken
clavicles, the Yoo-Hoos and ring dings at the corner store afterwards where
we tried not to bleed on the Archie comics, I can't help but wonder at an
article in the San Francisco Chronicle drooling over the new "role playing"
online video games.
It seems that the favored way of enjoying sports with fellow playmates now
is through something called an X Box, where you interact via a video screen
while screaming into a Gap employee headset. Games like "Rip His Lungs Out
2000" and "Carve Out His Guts With A Rusty Machete" allow you to reduce your pals to digital dust without potentially getting a GOOD GRACIOUS! grass stain on your Calvins, or HORRORS! an elbow in the gut.
But, gee, the article says that it is fun AND cheap! "Assuming you have a
broadband line such as DSL for the Xbox," gushes the article, "the cost of
playing video basketball with your friends in Iceland is under $50." Friends
in Iceland? Pardon moi? (translation: You're from which planet?) I played
games with kids I could kick and dismember IN PERSON while feeling their
playful knees crunching my skull in joyful camaraderie.
Dylan must have been predicting the Xbox when he warbled, "The times they
are a-changing." For better or worse, though, only as individuals -- with
our crippled knees and inoperable shoulders -- can we really judge.
For me, I'll happily take the sprains, the aches, the dashing with a slimy
football in spring showers, the mud in your eyes and, yes, the close
friendships, that playing games with real protein-based life forms brought -
things my father's long days of peddling little pills made it possible for
me to enjoy.
Dan Sherman is a Reno, NV-based writer. Read all of his columns at
www.danshermanonline.com. Email him at dan@danshermanonline.com.
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