The Ol' Swineskin

In the early days of ye olde Blog, I wrote a post about my dislike of baseball. I do, however, enjoy a little football. Especially the pocket-sized ones, so I can take them onto buses and into restaurants. I also love the game itself and so, exercising my right as a foundin’ member of the Blog, I have decided to post about that love right now.

Football began during the Spanish Inquisition, when one of the more popular pastimes included the cutting off of heathen feet. On any given weekday, and even more on Saturday, there would be dozens of variously attired feet rolling through the streets.

This practice caused no end of problems, not the least of which was the fact that the emergency rooms were full of people with bruises and cuts, caused by falling on the cobblestones after tripping in the dark over a carelessly placed foot. The history books record one such individual, Arch Fungus, whose case is typical. Arch was a heel, a real callused fellow, and it was widely-speculated that he had no sole. Ahem…sorry.

Anyway, Arch walked into a doctor’s office, demanding to see the physician on duty. When the doctor appeared and asked about the problem, Arch informed him it was a twisted ankle.

“Let’s see it,” the doctor said.

Reaching into his pocket, Arch pulled out a badly misshapen ankle and plopped it down on the examining table. “There,” he said. “I tripped over this last night and almost hurt myself. Something has to be done!”

Arch’s sentiment was repeated by the entire population and legislation was soon passed to stop the useless dismemberment. Since the heathen swine were not converting, the procedure itself couldn’t be terminated, so instead, the feet were put to good use. And this is when football made its first appearance.

At first, people just kicked the feet through the streets for fun, but soon teams were created, then leagues and divisions. You can see the pattern, can’t you? Now we have the National Football League, which entertains millions of people the world over, very few of whom know the real story behind their beloved game.

I have to admit that at first glance, the game seems utterly mindless. Here we have tons (literally) of huge, powerful guys charging around a field of fake grass, running into each other at full-tilt and attempting to kill the players of the opposing team. All over an oblong, inflated piece of leather. Actually, on second thought, this is an utterly mindless game. It’s also manly, but I wax redundant.

Last week, there was a game in which a punt returner grabbed the ball and began zipping down the field, breaking tackles and leaping over fallen comrades. He managed to flee down to the one yard line before a 500 pound linebacker, who had been lurking behind the goalpost, tackled him, leaving a punt returner-shaped hole in the turf, but no punt returner. Unable to find him, they dropped air fare down the hole and, sure enough, he was back within the week. He was none the worse for wear, except he now insists on eating everything with chopsticks, which is quite a feat when eating hamburgers and slices of pizza.