Week Thirty-Eight: Athletic Party

There’s a thrill in good old football.

What a thrill one feels

When a player makes a touchdown

With the whole gang at his heels!

Same is true of good old baseball

When a player makes a run;

But you’ll get a thrill at our party

And have a lot of fun.

Nice Hat, Mr. Nagurski

Yes, we He-Men and She-Women are here to honor the might of our, uh, mighty athletes for their skill and dedication. (Hey Bernie, cue the clip!)



And what better way to honor your local football or baseball team for their awkward, leather-bound, scraggly-limbed victory than by engaging in party activities that resemble sporting events, but in name only. Such as playing a round of Random Utensil Golf?

Bean Bag Golf. As the guests arrive they are divided into couples by the leader and matched to play bean bag golf. The game is played in the following manner:

Different kinds of vessels and utensils are set around over the house or perhaps hung on the wall or placed on top of the piano, and these are numbered as the eighteen holes of a golf course. Have someone get from the country club in your city enough score cards for your guests and change these numbers to fir your course. For example, if the score card shows a 500-yard hole with a five par, you might change this to five yards, three par. Each couple marks their own score, which score is the number of throws it takes each one to get their bean bag in the vessel The rule of the game is that they must stand erect when they toss the bean bag; and if it falls in a place where they cannot stand when they throw it, the penalty for moving it will be one stroke.

The game will create a lot of good, wholesome fun and will consume from twenty minutes to half an hour.

To Cokesbury’s credit, this is the first time in nearly 300 pages that they use the word “wholesome,” which I figured would be featured in every party, certainly much more than whistles and five-and-ten cent stores.

Additionally, I appreciate their use of the word vessel, which always brings this to mind:



Today, we’d probably say container, not vessel. ‘Container’ just doesn’t have that magical ring to it. “The pellet with the poison’s in the container on retainer . . . no, the container on the hanger has the pellet with the poison . . . uh, forget it. I’ll just run into the hills like the Maid Jean said.”

But let’s move on from such obscurities to other obscurities, viz, the naming of athletes:

Cut out from the sporting page of the newspaper or from baseball and golf magazines the pictures of well known athletes, such as Babe Ruth, Bobby Jones, Bill Tilden, Jack Dempsey, and Helen Wills. Also there might be included pictures of those who are prominent in their connection with athletics, such as Conney Mack. Number these and pin them on the draperies and place them about the room. Give slips of paper to the guests, and have them identify these athletes. Give a prize to the one getting the largest number correctly.

Give an even bigger prize to writers who don’t use adverbs in a superfluous manner and who can spell the name of sports-associated greats correctly.

With that all done, it’s time for another bean bag game, because tossing around light bean bags while chatting insipidly with your cohorts is what honoring athleticism is all about.

We could move on to the next game, Bean bag baseball, but as your guests are already tuckered out from tossing around the ol’ beans in bean Bag Golf, we’ll move on to something more exciting. Like this:

Blindfold Boxing Match. This is an excellent fun-maker, but must be carefully handled by the leader. Get two pair of boxing gloves, put them on two boxers that have been chosen, draw a circle, put the boxers inside the circle and carefully blindfold them. Turn each of the boxers around several times, so they will lose their sense of direction, and blow the whistle for the fight to start. They should be blindfolded so that their heads will be protected in case either of them should happen to get hit, but this is not the intention at all. The intention is to have them so widely separated that they cannot hit each other. Have two or three boys act as teasers, and make them think that they have found each other. After the gun has gone long enough, give both a prize as the winner.

Be sure, folks, not to pick trained pugilists for this game, as the teasers – lacking the protection your average, run-of-the-mill blindfold can offer in a boxing match –a re likely to get cold-clocked if a real boxer happens to make contact. And you might consider even among the untrained masses whether it’s a good thing to pair up, for example, two individuals who have had a running animosity between them. Oh, whatever happens, I see this game ending in tears.

To conclude our series of games meant to honor athletes and athleticism, let’s play a game that required virtually no athletic skill whatsoever:

Balloon Volley Ball. Stretch a string across the room about six feet from the floor, or if the ceiling is high, it is better to have it even higher than this. Inflate a toy balloon to use for the volley ball. Each side tries to keep the balloon from touching the floor on their side. If the ball touches the floor on their side, the other side scores a point. Ten points will be sufficient for a game, the first side winning ten points being the winner of the game.

Another way to play this is to forbid the use of hands, allowing players to strike the ball only with their heads. This should not be played, however, with a mixed group.

That last sentence really confuses me. What mixed group? Ladies and gentlemen? That begs the question – why should a game where groping and poking is not allowed suddenly be banned from mixed group play? Are we afraid that men, robbed of their hands, will engage in French-style head-butt lunges in order to come in contact with the “toy” balloon, which you should use as opposed to he industrial balloons you could smuggle home from the workplace? I just don’t get it.

But that’s okay. It’s time for refreshments, which you can dole out once your guests have picked their refreshment partner, which is done by having the men hide behind a curtain and extend their “athlete’s foot,” which the female counterparts must pick to find their refreshment partner. Refreshments, by the way, are “things generally found at athletic games” such as peanuts, pop corn, cracker jack, bottled drinks, and ice-cream cones. If y’all eat your treats in a sitting position, it’s likely that you’ll have hosted the first Athletic Party at which none of the guests broke a sweat.

That’s it until next time, when we get to see Cokesbury’s Spooky Chiller Halloween Party. Owoooo! Owoooo! Heh heh heh. Sorry. Suddenly channeling Count Floyd there.