It may come as a surprise to you, but I’m somewhat independent.
I enjoy walking alone as it offers a wonderful time for reflection.
I enjoy my time at home alone reading or watching TV.
I enjoy traveling alone as Highway 2 windshield time offers great meditation experiences.
And I enjoy working alone.
When I was a radio broadcast journalist, I was a one-man news department for over 20 years at KAMI in Cozad and KCOW in Alliance. I worked at my own pace and made all the decisions as to what should and shouldn’t go on the air. Yes, it led to a few confrontations with a body or two, but that’s okay. Those disagreements justified the preservation of my independence.
I’m sure that in some segment of your life, you can relate.
It also should not come as a shock that, as I child, I hated organized sports.
However, I loved pick-up football games. Twelve to fifteen of my buddies and I would gather on the playground of the Valparaiso (Neb.) Elementary school and engage in some of the most vicious games of tackle football imaginable.
Of course, this occurred only when the teacher who was assigned to playground duty – if she remembered she had the duty – was nowhere in sight.
And in the late 1960s and early 1970s this was a frequent occurrence.
To put in simply and succinctly, adult supervision on my childhood playground was public enemy number one.
I also participated in some wonderful pick-up tackle football games held away from the Valparaiso Elementary playground.
The most memorable took place on Saturday, October 7, 1972.
The eastern Nebraska sky was blue, the trees were red, yellow, gold, and brown, and Bob Devaney’s Cornhusker football team had an open date.
My mother soothed her 13-year-old son’s mild anxiety attack of what to do on an autumn afternoon void of Nebraska football by driving me to Valparaiso to spend the day with one of my 8th grade classmates, Terry Christensen. Terry lived on the extreme southwest edge of Valparaiso near the old Valparaiso High football field that nestled the Union Pacific railroad tracks and State Highway 79.
After recruiting a dozen of the neighborhood boys, we chose up sides and engaged in a full-fledged, smash-mouth tackle football game that lasted nearly two hours.
It was a backyard gridiron war void of helmets, pads, referees, moms, dads, or girls. But it was loaded with blood, sweat, adolescent profanity and black & blue marks that lasted for days.
I took a hit so hard my chest ached for nearly a week.
It was the greatest feeling in the world!
Ironically, this past Saturday, the Matt Ruhle Huskers had an open date.
Just like 52 years ago, the October 12, 2024, western Nebraska sky was blue, and the trees are now beginning to offer various shades of yellow, gold, brown and red.
It’s safe to say that my pick-up tackle football games are long ago history, so my wife need not worry.
However, if you ever see a group of boys involved in a rock ‘em, sock ‘em game of tackle football on a glorious autumn afternoon – leave them be.
You don’t want to be labeled as their public enemy number one by tossing an interference flag on their independence.