Superbowl Sunday 2/10/19

Superbowl Sunday

Patriots vs Rams

Ever since I can remember football has always been a large part of my life. My dad is a HUGE sports fan where some game or another was always on the radio or TV. Playoff games (in any sport) were a big deal in my house where we would decorate, mom would make a ton of snacks (things we usually didn't have in our kitchen) and a ton of their friends would come over- many of who also had children. The kids would usually go outside and play for awhile, but then get hollered at to come inside and watch at least half of the game. The Superbowl was like Christmas. Everyone would be drinkings, cooking, grilling, yelling, and laughing. I've always had great memories of the day even though most years I couldn't tell you who won or lost unless the 49ers were playing (my dad's team).

So every year regardless of where I live we always either host or go to a Superbowl party. This year we were invited to a friends party to watch with his siblings & their significant others. One of his sisters is a teacher and his brother is a chef along with a bunch of other strangers so there is always good conversation and good food. This year I was volun-told to handle all the snacks and others would handle the drinks, decorations, half-time meals, etc. So after a quick search on the internet for best Superbowl snacks I decided to make a snackadium (a stadium of snacks).

   

This was more work than I anticipated and spent more time constructing the cardboard "stands" than actually preparing any of the snacks and wish I had taken photos of the construction vs the finished product. I also attempted to make chocolate covered strawberry footballs which didn't come out as well, but took me back to my cake decorating days in the bakery while in undergrad. In reflecting back I thought about if this was truly play for me and I think it was. Although it was frustrating at times (when the stands kept falling over) or my poor husband, who was trying to help was not holding things the 'right' way and got yelled at multiple times, we had a ton of laughs like when an entire sandwich wall fell over and all the stadium snacks tumbled out like people fleeing the stadium after the game. Overall it was really fun. We were experimenting together doing something that neither of us knew how to do, but were figuring it out by trial and error and learned how to make it work. I think that play for children is sometimes like that, especially play within a group or with others where it can sometimes be challenging and frustrating, but also a ton of fun and really rewarding. I couldn't partake in many of the beverages and some of the food options this year and the actual game was lacking in excitement so the highlight for me was spending time with Jarrod and creating a masterpiece.

First Memories of Play

First Memories of Play

     Playing as a child was always a time of wonder and fun. I grew up fairly poor in a mobile home park that was located just outside of Fairchild Airforce Base in Airway Height, WA. It was a daily occurrence to hear the rumble and feel the vibration of various Airforce jets and Boeing airplanes flying overhead. As a child (about 4years old or so) I would spent hours looking up at the sky and wonder where those planes were headed and if I would ever get on one going to some other country where they didn't speak English. Little did I know then that it would take me 30+ years to get to a remote area of a country where they didn't speak English on an island in the Philippines. I would imagine elaborate characters sitting on those planes like Egyptian princesses or Indian kings having come to Washington for some important meetings regarding their countries protection (since that is all the Airforce members did in my mind-defense) then traveling back to their palaces sipping on fancy drinks in first class & watching performances like fire jugglers and belly dancers. I remember daydreaming a lot when I was a child while playing alone and many times reenacting stories and books that I had heard.

     It wasn't until I was about 5yrs old that other families with children moved into the mobile home park and I began to explore more areas outside of my home and yard. There were at least 6 other children along my street who I would play with at least every other day. Back then our doors were always open so we would just walk right into one another's homes or stand outside and yell their name until they came out to join us. Then we would escape to our own land across the street in the vacant lot filled with overgrowth, tumbleweeds, broken glass, rusted nails, a few abandoned cars, etc. This was our playground since another block up from our "park" was the I-90 highway where none of us were ever allowed to get near without a parent even though the small grocery store was also on that corner, but it was OK since none of us ever really had any money anyway. We would spent hours playing in that field climbing on the car using it as a castle that we had to defend from the monsters. Finding a dirty jacket with some sort of dried red substance on it and creating a mystery of the girl who wore it and what happened to her and the clues we needed to follow to find and save her. Our toys were primarily whatever we could find in that lot including a lot of sticks and rocks that became everything from swords to fences to pets and grenades. We would all meet up and someone would have an idea that everyone else would follow and would continue playing until the street lights came on or someone got hollered at to come home.

     Our play was extremely risky. I can't imagine anyone letting their kids play in broken glass and rusty metal everyday unsupervised in society today.  We'd get small cuts, scrapes, etc from running through the uneven surface and falling down, but none ever got infected (thank God). There was only a few major injuries. One boy cut a big gash in bottom of his foot and had to go get stitches. After that everyone was required to wear shoes every time they left their homes. And I hit another boy square in the middle of the forehead with a rock while playing catch. He also had to get stitches and still has a scar from it today. Someone's parent was always across the street somewhere either working on a busted car in their driveway, inside the house watching TV and drinking beer, or taking care of other baby siblings, but none every verbally checked on us. Almost of my memories about playing as a child are positive, even when the boy, I think his name was David hurt his foot we all gathered around him like medics, one child who was wearing shoes took off their sock and put it on David's foot, another patted his face and wiped his tears, we all lifted him and carried him back across the street to his home. I did feel really bad about hitting Nick in the face, he immediately saw the blood and started screaming then ran home. The rest of us were so scared that we all ran to our homes too. I hid under the blankets in my bed. It was 10 min later when Nick showed up at our house with his dad and I had to explain what happened then go with them to the hospital. That was not fun, but I quickly learned why you don't throw rocks.