Games, by Phillip Hoyle

As a kid I never much liked games of competition, but I did like games of simulation. The former were based on beating others—winning. My early aversion arose most likely from my lack of physical strength and coordination combined with my weak skills in strategizing. If I ran a race, I simply ran. The problem was that I ran too slowly. I couldn’t throw balls far or fast and the balls rarely showed up where I thought I was throwing them. At the shooting range I couldn’t see very well even though I had no idea of that. Then when I got corrective lenses I never could figure out how to compensate. I had a hard time concentrating on activities that didn’t capture my imagination.

I avoided football and baseball. I was attracted to basketball, but I wasn’t even a good basketball player. I wasn’t aggressive enough and didn’t care to be better than the other guys. But growing up I did like games like War, Cops and Robbers, and my favorite, Cowboys and Indians. I probably liked the costuming, props, and improvisatory acting. I was especially repelled by party games—games like Pin the Tail on the Donkey, or dropping clothes pins into milk bottles. I could play cards: War, Canasta, Gin Rummy, Pinochle, Poker, and Pitch, but I abhorred spin the bottle. I wasn’t interested to kiss anyone (well until 10^th grade when I learned to kiss Buddy).

I started working in churches fulltime in 1970 at the outbreak of the Learning Games Movement. Some of these were pretty awful and met strong resistance particularly from adult groups. I did like the Simulation Games—an accommodation of military training practices used to introduce students to strategic thinking as related to their topics of study. (It seems strange that I liked them given their origins!) Of course school teachers had long used competitive games like spelling bees and other more complicated ones like debate. Even in my high school years church youth rallies sported television game-show-inspired competitions over biblical knowledge pitting teams from neighboring churches. Although I knew the Bible pretty well, I never was interested to use the knowledge for purposes of showing off. It seemed somehow antithetical to the sense of charity or cooperation I learned from the Good Book’s best teachings. And remember, I was not very competitive.

During the 70s the New Games Movement started introducing cooperative games strategized to create community—Hippie-inspired group play that featured Earth Balls and sometimes flowers. I started developing similar games—both the New Games and Simulations—for youth retreats and elementary residential camps, ones related directly to the curricular themes and that often involved the creation of environments, for example, a simulated archaeological dig or a Middle-Eastern marketplace. These were much more related to the simulation games of childhood than they were to sporting events, and they proved effective in teaching.

To this day I fail to understand any competition that devalues human life—either that of an individual or of a group. Still I do appreciate the grace and power of athletes. I also like a couple of card games that have so little strategy as not to stifle conversation among the players. But I don’t like playing even those games with players who take winning too seriously.

Lest you think I am just an old stick in the mud, I will admit to enjoying the Christmas games my youngest granddaughters planned for our family. They involved individuals and teams. My favorite was the Reindeer Game. For my team I hurriedly blew up and tied off small balloons until I was out of breath and feeling very light headed. The balloons were then stuffed into panty hose. The team that first successfully filled the legs like antlers and whose reindeer donned them first won. Selected for the honor of being the reindeer were my son Michael and his wife Heather. They looked bizarrely cute, but my favorite part of that game was my daughter Desma’s story of trying to purchase panty hose. Suppliers have become rare. Finally she found a store that still carries them. The clerk said, “Yes, we have them. You must be going to play the Reindeer Game; it’s all the rage at the State workers’ office parties this year. You got here just in time.” Handing Desma the hosiery she said, “Here are the last two pair.”

Oh the games people play.

© 16 January 2017 

About the Author 

 Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, and socializing. In general he keeps busy with groups of writers and artists. Following thirty-two years in church work and fifteen in a therapeutic massage practice, he now focuses on creating beauty. He volunteers at The Center leading the SAGE program “Telling Your Story.”

He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot.com

Sports, by Gillian

In my youth, I understood sports to be for fun, fitness, and friendly competition. Now, in my curmudgeonly old age, I know sports to be about money, winning at all costs, and very unfriendly competition.

Even amateur sports have gone completely out of whack. Have you been to a school ball game lately? Even pee-wee baseball is all about winning. At that age, should it not be about having fun, getting some healthy fresh air exercise, and learning the basics of the game? Oh no! Fathers scream abuse not only at other children but at their own. God forbid that poor little Joey should strike out or fail to catch a ball. He'll pay for that when he gets home. The pressure on so many children these days is immense. Everything has become so serious.

Professional sports, of course, have paved the way. Back in the 1970s I had friends with Broncos season tickets. The husband frequently had better things to do, and my husband was rarely interested, so off to the game the girls went! It was fun. Having had the same seats for several seasons, my friend knew all the people around us. We all bought each other beers and chatted and cheered. After my divorce I lost touch with those friends, and I did not go to a live game for a long time. Then one day another friend had a spare ticket and I went to Mile High Stadium again, for the first time in probably twenty years. My, how it had changed. Everyone seemed to be angry rather than enjoying themselves. There was a constant stream of verbal abuse hurled at the players on both teams, and of course the officiating crew. I was so sick of the constant "F" word. By the time I left I felt as if it had been burned into my ears and my brain and my psyche. (Or, as Betsy commented when I read this to her, I felt completely fucked! And not in a good way!) I have not been offered a ticket to a football game since then; if I were, I seriously doubt that I would accept it.

I have to admit I still follow the NFL pretty devotedly on TV. I can't explain why I like it. Many lesbians are ardent football fans, which seems strange as the game consists of what most of us abhor; sanctioned violence, perpetrated by huge sweaty men. I have to close my mind to two things, though. The violence to women committed by an unfortunately large number of players, and the huge salaries now offered to these people, would put me off the entire sport if I thought about them too much, so mostly I don't.  After all, I don't refuse to see a movie because of the shenanigans of those acting in it.

I do abhor the lack of humanity which seems to have taken over. If a player has an injury, the opposing team members will do their best to attack that part of his body. Has it really gotten to the stage where the intent is to do permanent bodily injury?

"Be great for the Broncos if they could take him out for the rest of the season," laughs the commentator happily.

"Well if anybody can eliminate him, Foster can. Man! He plays so angry," rejoins his co-commentator in admiration.

"He's just looking to rip someone's head off every play!"

This isn't war. It's supposed to be a game. Was it always so merciless? Maybe so and I didn't get it. After all I have never played football.

OK. Fair enough. Football is a violent game. If you don't like it don't watch it.

But it's not just football.

I have played tennis, though far from the Pro level. But, at that Pro level, how it has changed. Once considered a sport of Gentlemen and Ladies, it is now as cut-throat as any other professional sport.

"Now Farmer's injured that right ankle, Varenova will keep her going to that side, see if she can't break her down," a happy commentator reports.

"Exactly," replies another, "It's time to take advantage of that injury and finish her off. Go in for the kill right now."

So this verbiage of violence seems to have penetrated even the sport of Ladies and Gentlemen.  It is so pervasive, and I cannot believe it has a positive effect on our society.

All this, and the seriousness with which we take sports, players and spectators alike, of course has come with the advent of huge financial rewards. These in turn came with the universal obsession with sports by so many people. In the days before huge lights dominated the playing fields, games were played in the daylight hours, thus eliminating most of the potential fans who were, of necessity, at work. Even if it were broadcast live on the radio, or later the old black-and-white TV, few were available to enjoy it. Most were played at weekends, to attract more followers, but time off work was limited and people had many things to cram into a weekend.

Then came the huge brightly-lit stadium where people could gather after work and watch, or watch at home on the TV in the evening, relaxing from that hard day at the factory.  The fan base kept growing. Sports were becoming big business. Compensation for players and coaches, support staff and owners, kept rising.

Then came mass media, complete with ever-improved recording devises and exponentially increasing choices of what to watch when. No need to miss anything. Ever. Grandma turns up unexpectedly right at the kickoff or the first serve; no matter. Press the little red button and welcome Granny with open arms. In addition, the fan base for all sports is expanding horizontally, across the globe. Want to watch the Australian Open Tennis here in the U.S.? Can't even figure out what day it is in Australia, never mind what time? No worries. Look it up on the TV Guide, on the TV of course, not that little book we once bought at the grocery store, hit that little red button and go to bed. Watch it tomorrow. Sometime. Whenever.

So, given professional sport's universal, world wide appeal, I suppose the money involved is only to be expected. I'm not sure what Neil Armstrong earned by being the first human ever to walk on the moon, but I doubt it was anything like what many many sports heroes earn. But why not? The moon walk was reportedly watched by 530 million people. The 2011 Cricket World Cup between India and Pakistan was supposedly watched by about one billion.

I miss the days with less hype, less money, less drama, involved in sports. But what I really really miss is the gentler language, before it all became so infused with violence. But it seems to be what most people want. After all, you get what you pay for.

© 3 Nov 2014 

About the Author 

I was born and raised in England. After graduation from college there, I moved to the U.S. and, having discovered Colorado, never left. I have lived in the Denver-Boulder area since 1965, working for 30 years at IBM. I married, raised four stepchildren, then got divorced after finally, in my forties, accepting myself as a lesbian. I have now been with my wonderful partner Betsy for 25 years.

Road Trip by Gillian

I came honestly by my addiction to road trips. I was introduced to them by my mum and dad. In Britain during, and for years after, World War Two, private cars were relatively rare; gas was severely rationed. But as we staggered into the fifties, our world became a little brighter and Dad took his old car down off the blocks where it had rested for a decade. He worked lovingly on it for some time, then lo and behold suddenly one Sunday afternoon we were off to the Welsh mountains. Before long the afternoon jaunts graduated to day excursions and thence to a week in Cornwall and two weeks in Scotland. There was never any discussion of camping, not a very attractive prospect in the wet cold British weather, but we were on a low budget and stayed in small back-street B & B’s. These were nothing like their upscale modern U.S. namesakes, but simply a spare room in a very modest house, usually sharing the bathroom and breakfast with the owners. In this style we went to many different parts of the country and met many interesting people.

Perhaps, had I not been an only child, I would have hated these vacations and even the day trips the way many modern kids hate spending hours in the car. But I had the luxury of the back seat to myself, without noisy squabbling siblings to dig elbows in my ribs or squash me against the door handle and demand the windows be open; or closed. I never once recall asking, even silently in my own head, “Are we there yet?” I think it was a safe and warm haven to me, shut away in this metal box, just the three of us.

But it was my mother who turned it from an OK activity to something I truly loved. Mum kept up something of a running commentary as we passed through the farms and towns. She loved history and regaled Dad and me, though he never responded except occasionally to glance back at me in the rear-view mirror and wink, with fascinating tidbits about different places; not boring things like dates but little anecdotes. At the time I believed it all to be true, though looking back I’m not completely convinced, though she certainly was a very knowledgeable woman. Apart from history, she would make up silly stories about a farm we just passed, or the vicar of a village church, or the family in a car we met going the other way. There were still not many cars on the roads then, so seeing one was just an invitation to Mom’s imagination. Most of all, she loved to laugh, and if there was nothing too immediately amusing in the vicinity, she would create something. She made herself giggle with some of her imagined stories, and she paid great attention to license plates, making them into acronyms or rhymes.

My mother leaps up in my memory quite often, and usually it’s when something comes up that I know would have made her giggle. During football games, for instance, not that I can imagine Mum ever enjoying football, but how she would giggle at some of the commentary, when they say things like, “He wasn’t doing much when he was an Eagle, but as a Panther he’s really come into his own.” When she stopped her giggles she would then, I know, weave some wonderful fairy story around this failed eagle which somehow morphed into a more successful big cat.

Anyway, having made a short story long, that was my introduction to road trips; followed, inevitable by a hiatus of decades given over to work and family. Then, in celebration of a new millennium, Betsy and I bought our VW camper van and embarked on our own series of road trips. I haven’t had time to count them up, but they must number around twenty-five for a total time of maybe a year, though we rarely are away for more than three or four weeks at a time.

We have been many places from the Mexican border to, and into, Canada; and from coast to coast. We have visited every one of the lower forty-eight states, and camped in most of them.

We have seen sights we had always wanted to see but not had the chance, and chanced upon things we had no idea of. Unlike taking a plane, when the best you can possibly hope for is a journey that is uneventful, road trips are never uneventful; nor do you want them to be, though it’s good when the wonderful surprises well outnumber the bad ones. We have of course had our share of those less positive - flat tires both on the road and in campgrounds, loading up in the morning all ready to go and the van won’t start; freeway accidents only narrowly averted and near misses with tornadoes, hail storms, and forest fires.

I understand that one day in the not too distant future one of us is going to reach the age where camping road trips are not such an attractive option. It’s unclear at this time which of us will reach that stage first, Betsy or me or Brunhilda as we call the van, mostly though not always, with great affection. That will be a sad day, whatever the reason. But one of the blessings of aging seems to be the ability to accept with relative ease that the good times of the moment will inevitably come to an end, but only to be replaced by other, different, good times. We can love taking out our favorite memories and dusting them off for further enjoyment, but at the same time always creating new ones while continuing, with luck, to live without regrets. And I suspect that my most frequently re-visited memories, as long as I’m privileged to have memories, will be of oh those many road trips.

© 15 August 2014 

About the Author 

I was born and raised in England. After graduation from college there, I moved to the U.S. and, having discovered Colorado, never left. I have lived in the Denver-Boulder area since 1965, working for 30 years at IBM. I married, raised four stepchildren, then got divorced after finally, in my forties, accepting myself as a lesbian. I have now been with my wonderful partner Betsy for 25 years.