Go Ask Daddy: C is for Corner Flag #A to ZChallenge

EJP

It’s the place to take the kids at halftime.

For Day 3 of the A to Z Challenge, C is for Corner Flag. It’s away from the bench, still far from the parents, and a great spot for me to sit Indian style (as a child of the 70s, I’ll use this term) and talk over what just happened in the first half.

Just add a gaggle of Gatorade swigging kids.

It’s a bit of a refuge, the corner flag.

The day Grace scored her first goal, I filled in for her regular coach. She wasn’t the soccer diva you see before you today. In fact, in that rainy day with the Bethel Bulldogs, she got trampled. By teammates.

She took a spot on the bench. Huge tears fell from pretty almond-shaped brown eyes.

She came back and scored her first goal ever, ripping a shot past a boy who’d had the gall to toss the pretty rocks she found over the fence before the game.

So elated with the game, I ran a zigzag pattern on the way to the corner flag again, the kids running and laughing behind me. Sometimes, that spot’s full of tears and bruises. But on this day, when they finally tackled me by the corner flag, it was nothing but bliss.

1. How long is halftime?

http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com/p/a-to-z-challenge-sign-uplist-2015.html

In soccer – about 15 minutes.

In the NFL – about 12 minutes. Except for Super Bowls. This is because there must be time added to smoke up the air and mat down the grass.

And gather up the dancing sharks after Katy Perry’s show. All this takes more than an hour.

Your soccer games go about 5 minutes, which is just enough time to think about a run to the port-a-jon, but not do it.

2. Is Jeremy Wade Australian?

photo credit: LEGO Creator 31031 | Is this Lego-fish carnivorous? via photopin (license)

Wade, host of one of Grace’s favorite shows, River Monsters, is British. His jacked-up accent could be an amalgamation of years spent in remote jungle rivers chasing man-eating fish.

Think reaching his hands into murky South American river gunk is the most dangerous thing he’s done? He’s been arrested as a suspected spy, survived Malaria, been held up at gunpoint, and survived a plane crash.

No wonder a school of piranhas is no big deal.

A bear once stole his fish, too. Probably during a Super Bowl halftime.

3. Do they play football on Thanksgiving?

photo credit: IMG_4856 via photopin (license)

Thursday afternoon football, plateloads of food, and a day off from work?

Sounds like heaven to me.

NFL games are layed in Dallas and Detroit, although the league added a night game that has all the storied history of the Sharknado series.

The Lions have played on Thanksgiving since 1934; the Cowboys, since 1966.

Given their recent playoff records, Turkey Day fits both the Cowboys and Lions.

Male turkeys, by the way, are called toms. Since 1950, quarterbacks named Tom (Brady, Flores and Kramer) are 5-1 in Thanksgiving Day games.

4. Why did that TV not break in Pink Panther 2?

photo credit: Old broken TV via photopin (license)

I really didn’t find an answer to this one, lovey.

The scene is quite obscure, too. A villain on a boat flings a wine glass at a TV on a boat, and the glass shatters before it gets to the screen. There must be a protective shield on the TV, to protect it from salt water, flying mackerel and slung wine glasses.

I found something called TV Armor.

And because this is a bit of a stinker of an answer, here’s a funny scene from Pink Panther 2.

5. Why are new cars so low to the ground?

photo credit: 2013 Lincoln MKZ at the 2012 New York International Auto Show via photopin (license)

Grace, it feels like you and I are old men sitting on a porch talking about Studabakers. You’re right. It’s not just European roadsters, either.

The family minivan sits like a lowrider these days. Or maybe it’s NASCAR aerodynamics at play. Could it have to do with all the cameras and sensors we have to keep us in our lanes and from backing up over lurking alligators?

Ah hell, we’re almost out of time to gripe about it. Meet me here at halftime of the Super Bowl, would you?