I come from a very large family. We are close to each other and try to get
together as often as possible. Over the years it seems that busy schedules and
obligations cut into the amount of time we can spend together. When we do get
together we play backyard football. This is something that we have done since we
were children. On Sunday afternoons my mother would chase us outside after a
large noon meal to run off energy. Two of my brother’s played football on the
high school team so they always wanted to get in extra practice time. Our
backyard football games were usually friendly and care was used not to get too
rough with tackling. It seems as we are getting older, and have added in-laws
into our games of backyard football, the play has gotten rougher.
A few weeks ago we were all together at my brother’s home for a barbeque.
After we had eaten someone suggested that we play a game of backyard
football. We split into teams and decided we would play the siblings against
the in-laws. This was our first mistake. A great deal of time has passed
since we played backyard football together as kids. I hate to admit it but
we are all middle aged. However once the game of backyard football began it
seemed like no time had passed since we were playing in our parents yard. We
communicated well and soon the siblings had taken a commanding lead in the
backyard football game. This was difficult for one of my brother in-laws to
handle. He is very competitive and was not happy to be on the losing team.
When we next had the ball I noticed that he seemed to be tackling people
with a lot of force. One of my brothers’ noticed this also and told him to
ease up. This seemed to make him even more determined to keep us from
scoring. Soon the friendly backyard football game was getting very serious.
One of my brothers passed the ball to my youngest sister. She caught it and
started for the end zone. My brother-in-law tackled her from behind and fell
with his full weight on her leg. She cried out in pain and dropped the ball.
One of my nieces is studying to be a doctor. She ran over to look at her
aunt’s leg. She insisted that we take her to the hospital to have x-rays
taken. My car was the closest so we loaded her in and went to the emergency
room. The x-rays confirmed that she had broken a bone in her foot as well as
her shin. As the doctor was setting her leg and putting on the cast she said
that it would be fun to tell everyone how she had been hurt.
The doctor told us that we were too old to be playing such a rough game and
should switch to something less physical. We have not played backyard
football again.
