The Football Hero

Will I ever forget Thanksgiving, 1967? That was the day Mom went to watch my older brother Steve play in the most important football game of the year. The annual Thanksgiving game at Paulsboro High School. Mom always said she liked her children to be in the limelight. She didn't care what reason you were in it, just so long as you were. She would tell us "If you're going to steal, steal the Hope diamond. Don't go to jail for some petty crime." Not that she was encouraging any of us into a life of crime, she just wanted us to think big.

The Thanksgiving game at Paulsboro High School was big. The entire town would turn out to cheer on the closest thing to gladiators any of them would ever see. The fans crossed generational lines, as fathers and uncles who had played on the team in years past now sat in the stands cheering on their hardy offspring.

My brother Steve was a football star, and Mom was justly proud of him. She would go to Miller's store and buy him a steak and prepare it for him on Saturday mornings before the big game (and in Paulsboro, every game was big). The rest of us kids fended for ourselves for breakfast, eating cereal or whatever else we could make. Which was strange, since Mom did virtually every other thing for us, all day, every day.

Her day would start while it was still dark out, and she would first brew herself a pot of coffee so strong it would kill a bear. People used to use her coffee as a cure for constipation. Seriously. To deal with all those kids (12 total, and it seemed when one moved out, she'd have two more), I guess she needed that artificial stimulant. The Pall Mall was next. Non-filtered. Next to rolling up sulfur in paper and smoking that, this cigarette had to be the strongest thing a human being could ingest into their lungs. I remember the first secret puff I ever took on one of her (stolen) Pall Malls. I thought my ears would explode. I think Mom smoked about three packs of these a day. I guess we kind of got on her nerves. Dad and us. Between Mom's Pall Malls, and Dad with his three pack a day Camel non-filters habit, it truly is a wonder we kids didn't all die of second hand smoke inhalation by the time we were twelve. But if we had their lives, there's no telling what we would be smoking.

After her breakfast of Maxwell House and Pall Malls, her day would begin. With the radio on all day as her constant companion, she would begin her chores.

There were few pleasures my parents really got to enjoy, basically living a life of sacrifice that revolved around all their children. So it's understandable that perhaps they might live a little vicariously through those children.

Mom certainly did when it came to football. Those weekly gridiron contests became the highlight of her life. She would sit in the stands, as proud as a peacock, as everyone around her pointed out that Steve was HER son. This was HER moment in the spotlight, as well as his.