Part 13 (1/2)

I don't remember what the article was about that earned er have been worth far, far more

Christmas Trees The people who think Christ with everything They say, for instance, that store decorations and Christ areas are just a trick of business

Well, I'm not inclined to think of theht of Christmas is money, that's too bad for them, not for the rest of us

If a store that spends money to decorate its s has commerce in mind, it doesn't ruin loves fro its s to attract eross and my Christmas spirit I stay away fro drab

I like Christht colors and the world with it

I like the lights and the crowds of people who are not sad at all They're hurrying to do so for someone because they love them and want to please them and want to be loved and pleased in return

In New York City, the big, lighted Christ Park Avenue for three weeks every year produce one of the great sights on earth

There is a kind of glory to a lighted Christ is not low and rotten and dishonest, but that people are good and capable of being elated just at the thought of being alive this year

When I' at a well-decorated Christmas tree, no amount of adverse experience can convince ood If people were bad, they wouldn't go to all that trouble to display that much affection for each other and the world they live in

Christmas Trees 199 199 The Christlory to the all the money in the world could buy

The trees in our hoht not to They look more the e look, and we are all different They reflect our personalities, and if someone is able to read palht to be able to tell a great deal about a fa room

Christmas trees should be real trees except where fire laws prohibit the real It is better if they are fir or balsam, but Scotch pines are pretty, oftenthat is blue, gold, silver, pink or any color other than green is a Christ the Christoes like this: You put up the Christmas tree Christmas Eve You do not put it up three weeks in advance or three days in advance

If you have young children, you put theet older, you let theet even older, you make make them help decorate the tree When the tree is decorated, you put the presents around it You do not open presents Christmas Eve them help decorate the tree When the tree is decorated, you put the presents around it You do not open presents Christ turns on the Christhts

The best Christ nature If sorown in a re as it grew dark, the whole world would coreat beauty

So, don't tell me Christmas is too couard at Colgate University in 1940 I went on to play in the NFL, and later was voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame Well, I wasn't actually actually an All-America and I never played professional football-you kno old football players and war veterans tend to exaggerate-but I did get into a few gae ere ahead by four or five touchdowns and coach Andy Kerr cleared the bench to give the substitutes a break an All-America and I never played professional football-you kno old football players and war veterans tend to exaggerate-but I did get into a few gae ere ahead by four or five touchdowns and coach Andy Kerr cleared the bench to give the substitutes a break

That was as close as I ever got to being either All-A those years as so less than a Heisman Trophy winner, I acquired a love for football that is undiaate, I was a 185-pound running guard In the Single-or Double-Wing forreat early football coaches, Pop Warner, I pulled to run interference for a halfback or fullback on half the plays We had Bill Geyer, one of the all-tiate history, who had run one hundred yards in ten seconds as a sprinter He was one of the fastest, toughest, most elusive halfbacks in the nation Later, he played with the Chicago Bears

There was no inter offense, as there is in today's game in which the quarterback handles the ball on every play Everything was Shotgun When the play was called for Geyer to side right, the center snapped the ball directly to Bill and he took off

Everything ell in practice those first feeeks I got by the first couple of games okay, but then ent up to Archbold Stadiuy end as responsible for everything that went outside

We ran one of those sweeps during the game From a sprinter's stance, the Syracuse end started at the sae Froht and headed for the gap between the end and Geyer

[ierland at The Albany Academy The distance between the tas shorter than the distance between me and them and with my speed, which unlike Geyer's was closer to twenty seconds for a hundred yards, there was no way I could get between them for a block

We beat Syracuse that day, as I recall, but Geyer never gave me a lot of credit for the victory

My career as a football player in college was one stuame dominate my life and become a culturally deprived jock, so I decided; to take piano lessons during the football season

The wife of a history professor undertook, at 2 for each one-hour lesson, to teachthat it was quite probable that I had more potential as a football player than I had as a musician My first day of piano lessons also turned out to be my last I went directly froae between substitutes and the first teae that day, I was playing opposite Bill Cheht was mostly at or above the waist He had short, relatively se torso with stomach to match At 260 pounds, ”Cherno” was the heaviest s turned out, it didn't ht or how ht hand in the middle of the third quarter, that ended, for all ti another Horowitz My hand still is slightly deformed, and I often look at it with the same sense of pride hich I view the television Emmys in my bookcase

One of the saddest days of a boy, I'd played in vacant lots-back in the days when there were vacant lots- every Saturday during the fall By the tiah school and in college and then, one day, it was over It was like the daydied

It probably wouldn't occur to anyone who never played that even second stringers love the ga football You hear parents advise their children to learn to play a safer sport, a sport like golf or tennis that they can enjoy all their lives I understand that argument but, as bad as I felt on that last day, I wouldn't tradewhen I was eight and grown up to be Arnold Palmer

People who have played football at any level watch a game with a different eye than so, they tend to watch thethe position they played If you played center, you watch the center a lot If you played end, you watch the ends

I hear people say they can see the ga in the stadiuood to watch at ho at ho football at all, but it isn't the sa there is that, good as the pictures, commentary, and replays are on television, the person at hoame that someone else has chosen to show him What you watch is not your choice At the stadium, the fans can watch what they want to watch anywhere on the field I concede that if a person is not a knowledgeable football fan, he or sheit on television

I oftenthat has happened to the ball carrier, because I' to the nose tackle or vice versa

Every team played a seven-man defensive line when I played, with only one linebacker-always the toughest kid on the block We all played both ways, of course, offense and defense If they hadn't changed the rules, Joe Montana ht have had to play free safety on defense I don't kno that would have worked out for Joe, but I think New Orleans fullback Ironhead Heyward could hold his own as a reat Frank Gifford, the raceful football player I ever watched, was one of the last to play both offense and defense for the Giants

Even relatively new football fans have seen a lot of rule changes One ofOfficial Football Guide Spalding Official Football Guide that belonged to ed to e in 1900

In those days they had to make only five yards for a first down (in three downs), and the literary style of the old rule book should eresses,” the rule book reads, ”in a series of downs, the only lined to prevent one side fro possession of the ball without any material advance, which would be manifestly unfair to the opponents

”In three atte oal must surrender possession of the ball

”It is seldom that a team actually surrenders the ball in this way,” the rule book continues in its elegant prose, ”because, after two atteain appear small, it is so clearly politic to kick the ball as far as possible that such a method is more apt to be adopted”

Eat your heart out, John Madden!

In 1925, the NFL player limit was sixteen As late as 1944, a teaht players And, of course, the unifored

One of the pri seems to help, and that certainly is true of the protective equip a player wears to a gao, but I don't notice that there are any fewer injuries Of course, er people Early helmets were felt-padded leather Today's plastic helmets are part protector, part lethal weapon

Players used to make some individual choices about their uniforms What a player wore frequently was not very unifors and players who didn't In the NFL today, stockings aretheory He refused to wear an athletic supporter because he felt he was safer from injury in this sensitive area if his private parts weren't confined like sitting ducks

There was no rule against grabbing the facemask until 1956, for a simple reason-there were no face back to the huddle, leaning over, and spitting his front teeth on the ground as he listened to the signal for the next play Broken noses were coe rubber protector over his nose that looked like part of a clown's costu a mouthpiece attached to it between his teeth