The Football

When you bought groceries years ago at Loblaws, you got something called Lucky Green Stamps. You had to paste them into a book. When you got enough, you could look in a catalogue and redeem them for gifts.

There were not many advantages living in a house with eight children. One benefit was that we had a grocery bill much greater than most people. The reward was that my mother always came home with a pile of these sheets of stamps.

Each week, my mother and I would paste these stamps in the books. We had too many to lick. We would get out warm water and sponges and tackle the task. We would dream of all of the things we could buy with our stamps as the number of books piled higher and higher.

My birthday was coming up and my mom decided to use our precious stash of stamps to get me a football. When I received it, I remember thinking how unselfish she was to get me a football when she could have gotten something that might have made her life easier. Mind you, my brother and I would go outside and kick it around, getting us out of the house and buying my mother some quiet time.

Think about it, though. A football bought with Lucky Green Stamps is not going to be one like the professionals use. After many months of punting it around and it became very apparent that the commissioner of football hadn’t signed this one. Shoelaces replaced the plastic laces that looked like leather in the beginning. The bladder of it bulged a bit out of this lattice, looking a bit like a hernia. One end of the ball was pointed, as it should be. The other was rounded. My football resembled a dirigible. Let’s just say that it had seen better days.

We had a large backyard in Willowdale, but as we grew older, we were able to kick the ball occasionally into our neighbours’ yards. This was not a big problem. We’d just hop the fence and grab it. That is, until Mr. and Mrs. Brown moved in. They planted a garden at the bottom of their yard and our football flopped down in the middle of it from time to time.

Finally it got too much for Mr. Brown. He came out and retrieved our football and told us that if it ever went in his backyard, he would keep it.

We were very careful after that, but fate stepped in. I kicked the ball. It hit the corner of the sandbox in the middle of the yard, bounced high in the air, smacked against the top of the fence and plunked down in the middle of the vegetable garden.

Mr. Brown came running out and grabbed the football. My brother asked him to give it back. He told my brother that he would charge him with trespassing if he set foot on his property. Immediately my brother leapt over the fence daring him to do just that. This prompted Mr. Brown to retreat to his house with my football.

Personally, I didn’t care that much. The football was really old and didn’t have much life left. However, that’s not the way my mother looked at it. Somebody had stolen our property that had been bought with the blood, sweat and tears of putting all of those Green Stamps into books. She phoned the police.

An officer of the law arrived within twenty minutes. Our neighbourhood was pretty quiet, so when a police car arrived, everybody crowded around and watched him march towards our door. The tension mounted as he knocked and walked in. What could have happened at the Stevens’s house?

He came in and asked, “What happened?” My mother and my brother went through some animated skit. The imitation of Mr. Brown was comical. Then he asked, “Whose football is it?” Like a compass needle fixing on the North Pole, all fingers pointed at me. “Come with me,” stated the officer. “But I don’t really care about the football,” I blurted. “Come with me,” he repeated more firmly.

Outside the whole neighbourhood was assembled around the squad car. Everyone watched as the officer led me out of my house. Like a criminal, I was required to sit in the back seat. I was embarrassed. What the neighbours didn’t see was that the car turned the corner out of their view and stopped in front of Mr. Brown’s house. As far as they were concerned, I was being hauled off to the slammer.

We walked up to Mr. Brown’s door. He knocked. “Do you have his football?” the officer asked. Mr. Brown stated that he did. “Give it back to him,” he said, which he did. Then the cop turned to me and said, “Keep it out of his yard.”

That was the end of football in our yard. The ball was officially retired.

I remember my brother and I plotted ways to get back at Mr. Brown. We figured if we mixed cement with his soil, the next time it rained we would have a sidewalk where a garden had been.

The relationship with the Browns was not too cordial after that.

Then something happened that changed everything.

I used to walk a couple of miles to school – about three kilometres if you are metric. Whatever the weather, I had to confront it.

One morning it was pouring rain. I had to get to school on time, but there was no doubt that I would be soaked by the time I got there.

A car stopped. A window rolled down. It was Mrs. Brown. She was going to work and wanted to know if I needed a ride. Her office was very close to my high school. I accepted, not knowing why I was taking the bait of the enemy.

After that, whenever she saw me walking, rain or shine, she would offer me a ride. We ended up being very good friends, chatting away about many things as she drove to work.

It was that one act of kindness that opened the door. I saw a witch turn into a very kind lady. Through her, I found out that Mr. Brown wasn’t all that bad, either. She discovered that I was fine, too.

I love stories with happy endings. This is indeed one of them, except for my poor, old football. It was eventually tossed out in the garbage.