Calvinball

 

Po Boy Views

By

Phil LaMancusa

Goals

Or

Penalties

“Other kids games are such a bore, they gotta have rules, they gotta keep score. Calvinball is better by far; it’s never the same, it’s always bizarre!”

        Life is full of taxis, stockbrokers and rush hour traffic; busy mothers, 911 calls, column deadlines and commercials for injury attorneys; federal taxes and cheap restaurants, unsolicited magazines and free credit cards; news programs, lampposts, laptops, politicians … and flamboyantly… there’s… spectator sports.

        How do you describe a society that knows the names of athletes better than they know the names of their elected officials? It’s news of a gunshot in the early hours, car break-ins, trash by the side of the road and where we gonna watch the game? Grab me a beer and a seat. This is how we live. Watching. Watching. However; spectating is for chumps, we never did that when we were kids; we always participated in our sports, real and imagined…

        Remember growing up racing our bikes through yards and parks, and up to abandoned houses and across railroad tracks and down to the levee to look for alligators or under the wharves to check for washed up dead bodies? Remember clubs we made up and belonged to? Facing a kid tossing a softball at our head or taking a hit to the groin with a soccer ball, parents shouting:”Kill him!” We weren’t spectators, we were cohorts! Some fool would say that we lost that and I will call that fool a fool.

        Now, when we watch so called ‘organized’ sporting events; say LSU or The St. Louis Wolves (who’s on first?), we choose a side, possibly the local team or a preferred favorite and not only hope that they win, but will, in fact, pray for them to annihilate the competition. From a bleacher; couch; or bar stool shouting “Kill him!” and how lame and lazy we’ve become.

        Enter Calvinball; no sport is less organized than Calvinball; in fact, there are only three rules: 1. Everyone must wear a mask (a strip of black cloth with eyeholes) 2. No two games are ever played the same way twice and 3. There are no rules. Here’s an example:

        The game is played by two teams of 1&1, 2&2, 3&3, 4&2, 5&1 or 6 and none, your choice (or anyone’s choice) one person will bring a Frisbee and an old tennis shoe. You all choose new names, say Eenie, Meenie, Miney and Ralph (unless Moe is playing) You choose captains by playing rock scissor paper and then the captains choose a ‘splace’ (place and space), e.g. at a beach or local park, big enough to run amok in (trees and open areas are good to have). One captain throws the Frisbee and wherever it lands becomes third base marked by the tennis shoe. Then you lay a blanket 36 degrees west of third base and deposit the snacks and all the gear. Someone has brought a Wiffle, volley or beach ball and a bag of potato chips, this becomes the Calvinball and trophy. Costumes and stuffed tigers (Hobbes’) are encouraged; helmets and/or earmuffs optional.

        Others bring cookies, soft drinks, water balloons, bug butter sandwiches, candy necklaces and red liquorish ropes. Gear includes flags on dowels, croquet mallets, badminton racquets and birdies, pickets with numbers on them etc. All players should be able to recite poems, sing the Very Sorry Song, apologize profusely and call fouls for any reason real or imagined. All scoring is non numerical such as “Q-A”, “Boogies” “Oogies” or “Natchitoches’”. Zones of Silence, Slow Motion, Break Dancing and Invisibility may be pointed out at any moment by any team player or spectator, cheerleader or ‘Left-Out Player’ that happens to be around. If a player steps into the Vortex Spot they must spin around until they get dizzy and fall down. All teams may have names that they may change before, during or after the game. The object is to have fun, play and the winners pay for ice cream and pizza afterward; no team ever loses. Got the picture?

        Let’s play! The Calvinball is tossed in the air; all team players turn their backs; Eenie sneaks a look and kicks the ball toward a tree claiming the tree to be a goal. Meenie calls foul and demands an apology; Eenie claims that Meenie is standing in a Zone of Invisibility and must put her hands over her eyes until hit by the Calvinball which Ralph has stolen and has brought to the Boomerang Zone where everything is reversed and Meenie has to sing an ‘Apology Song’. Miney then throws a water balloon at Ralph who ducks and has the ball taken and thrown at Meenie putting her back in the game. The water balloon misses and hits Moe who is one of the ‘Left-Out Players’. Meenie sings a song and all players break for snacks.

        Moe blows a whistle and the game is back on; Eenie falls down in the Tantrum Zone and can only get up when everyone sings the ‘It’s Gonna Be Alright’ song; which they do. Meanwhile, the ball is in motion and Miney punts it with a Croquet Mallet toward a red stick stuck in the ground surreptitiously by Eenie who claims it as a goal named Baton Rouge; Moe calls foul and is reminded that he’s not in the game, which is a game wide penalty and everyone has to form a Perimeter of Wisdom and proclaim declarations of any sort in favor of the beauty of the day. Ralph meantime is at Third Base taking a nap.

        The game goes on and on from there with a final score of 20 Tchoupitoulas’ to 85 Meshuggenehs (tie score); high fives all around, share the potato chips, a group hug and off to Brocado’s and Venezia’s Pizzeria.