Nice Game

Why do we remember what we remember when we remember? And why do we forget what we forget when we forget? Is everything recorded in our brains? Can everything be recalled, everything be erased?

I don't know.

I do know that yesterday I remembered playing this game when I was a young lad.  I lived in a little suburban enclave, where lots of other kids my age lived too. We played this game called "smear the queer." I don't know why the game was called "smear the queer." I don't think it was a "sexual" slur. "Queer" was more like "the weird one."

The "queer" was the kid with the football. The football would be kicked to the queer, and then the rest of the gang (anywhere from 5 to 10 other boys) would try to tackle him. If you were the queer, your mission was to run, evade, or plow through the swarm of tacklers to get to the "end zone." If you were successful you scored a point, and then did it all over again.

So the queer was the kid with something no one else had, and everyone else did their best to tackle this kid and basically pound him into the dirt. You wanted to be the queer, but at the same time you were marked out to be crushed. You were different from everyone else when you held that football. And no one liked you. Everyone wanted to destroy you. Still, if you had that football, you could score, you could get to the end zone, you could jump for joy.

Or, of course, you could be swamped, crushed, pounded. Left a broken thing on the ground.

Nice game.