Yesterday’s High School Football and Flashbacks

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Today’s Blog Post


Yesterday’s High School Football and Flashbacks

This story needs to begin away back in 1959, 52 years ago. It all began in a PhysEd Class at Central Collegiate in Regina. Central was located in College Avenue across from the old University Campus/teachers college facility.

Mr. Dynna was our PhysEd Teacher and the Coach of our High School Football Team – The Central Gophers. He had a southern drawl and often spoke of his American Roots and in particular his understanding of American Football.

It was a thrill as a 15 year old boy at the time to try to put all the pieces together as Mr. Dynna tossed out the new ideas and information about football. These were things that I had no idea about.

Now I should explain that each Friday night was a major time for High School Football games. They were all held at the Taylor Field the home of the Saskatchewan Roughriders – everyone’s favorite and only team to support in Saskatchewan!

Mr Dynna was also our Sex Education Teacher for the boys. During these certain classes we were separated into two groups, guys with Mr. Dynna and girls somewhere else in the building with someone else.

“So you guys all know about VD don’t you?” Mr. Dynna asked in his southern drawl and with a grin on his face. Many guys in the class laughed nervously at his questions. I sat there looking dumb but tried to look cool. The way the guys had laughed in a suggestive way left me thinking that this is one of the secrets that we never talked about at home. I had never heard the term “VD” before that class that day.

I cannot remember what the full class was about. I think the words “protection” and “disease” were used by Mr. Dynna – but the rest came later from either David or Harry, guys in my class that talked about what they already knew, in front of me.

PhysEd had included Sex Ed, personal health and cleanliness… but more than that it had included Football, Football, Football and still more Football. By the time I was 16 years old I knew lots about Football. I had attended lots of games and played lots too. It was in our blood stream. It was part of our culture.

Time rolled by and Football and Football Games faded – it became TV Games and the odd game that I could catch in real life if someone had tickets to give away.

Living in many different places where Football, specially the Canadian Football League kind and the American’s National Football League kind – were unknown. When you tried to explain the CFL and the NFL in Asia they really looked at you funny. They questioned why someone would make their highly prized round football to be elongated with two white stripes painted on it.

A lot has happened in my last 59 years of living and most has not been around Football. The Friday nights at Taylor Field in Regina, are a distant and even vague memory.

I can remember sitting in the stands with my good football friend’s girlfriends, enjoying the smell of their perfume and the sound the giggles… loving the fact that they wanted me to sit with them… while their boyfriends were killing themselves on the field below. The “huddle” in the stands with these gals was “very interesting” to say the least.

These gals used me! They knew that I would listen and not say much. So they poured out their problems with boyfriends and school problems to me in the bleachers. Sometimes they wanted me to go for “a coke” to get away from the larger group – so they could talk to me alone.

Little did I realize that it was likely the beginning of my “pastoral work” as a minister later in life.

I didn’t have a girlfriend when I started going to the Football Games. But as the many weird and whacky relationships between fellow high school students were morphing from passionate love to stone cold rejection in a matter of days, my work in the stands became more active.

Goofy as it was, I became a “boyfriend” to some of those gals. I was used as an intermediate stage until they landed their next Football Player Boyfriend.

What a weird world it was. There are some stories that I cannot tell as some of the players are still alive and doing their own grand-parenting somewhere in a world out there.

When I got my very own real girlfriend, one that was “true to me” and stayed “true to me” until someone else asked her out behind my back… sheesh… I didn’t have a lot of time to sit with the other guy’s girlfriends.

Now why in the heck and where in the heck did these thoughts come from in my 67 year old brain? Can you imagine that? A 67 year old, retired minister, thinking of his old flames and the old love stories that happened way back in High School?!!!!?

I happened yesterday in Orillia, Ontario at 100 University Drive and the West Orillia Sports Complex, while sitting on cold aluminum stands. I was huddled together beside my wife of the last 44 years… and the gal that was my girlfriend for 5 years before that.

Flashbacks – whoa! What a moment! They came at the speed of lightening and the sound of thunder.

In front of us was our 16 year old Grandson Clifford Ross Lindsay, dressed in his all green football uniform with his white helmet. Together with the other players on his Adam Scott Lions football team they played long and hard – doing almost everything right.

Yesterday was last game of the West (Central?)Ontario’s high school football league – AA division. Adam Scott’s team met with the Barrie Central. These two schools had won their way to this top position and met head on.

When it was over Adam Scott had won 44 to 7 over a very good team.

Clifford did some amazing plays to say the least from a bragging grandfather. You see him in this prized shot intercepting the football from the other team’s play.

The neat part is that his other grandpa, Doug Lindsay, was sitting with me as we watched what this kid of ours could do. We had a blast!

Flash backs. As I sat their listening to scream of people sitting in the stands… and watching what was happening in front of us… the old memories came back so powerfully… I was 16 again… watching my friends play hard and well. I was back home again… and oh so many memories.

A few times I had to shake myself and keep coming back to the important game in front of us.

What a day – what a wonderful day!

Oh and yes… a BIG CONGRATULATIONS to the Adam Scott Lions’ team. They are off to Carleton Place(near Ottawa) next Saturday… where they will meet their last big challenge meeting their final opponents in the National Capital Bowl at Beckwith Field.

And YEP – Grandpa and Grandma will be traveling next Saturday! Oh the flash backs!

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~ Murray Lincoln ~
http://www.murraylincoln.com/