I was one of the goodie goodie students,
raggedy penmanship
but number two in spelling
and decent at arithmetic.
At recess on the playground though,
a different kettle of fish.
I was the littlest sixth grader,
the youngest, the scrawniest.
When picking sides for football,
I always stood there waiting till the end.
Come November’s first big snowfall,
the boys turned to “Tackle”.
A simple game, just one rule:
one boy was named the runner,
the others’ job, to tackle him.
Two dozen scalawags,
hooting and hollering,
chasing the runner
from here to there.
He who tackled the runner
became the new runner,
and the game began all over again.
Runners zigged and zagged,
dodged and stiff-armed,
but the playground was only so large
and the runner always got cornered.
The only question was how
long he could stay on his feet.
The runners, nearly always the same:
Abber, Gundy, Jimmy B,
John John, Deeny Boy.
Abber Murphy was the champ by far,
the fastest toughest kid in our school,
the fullback on the football team.
One time we surrounded Abber at the back wall
and he turned around and
he looked me straight in the eye
and I thought to myself,
“I knew it, he’s going to kill me.”
I crouched down, stretched out my arms,
shut my eyes, held my breath.
Abber slammed into me head-on
and,
wonder of wonders,
he lost his footing
and we both tumbled into the snow.
All the boys started cheering
(at least that’s how I imagine it),
and Abber said,
“Good tackle, Bud!”
So I was the next runner
but I only got eight feet or so
before somebody knocked me down.
It didn’t matter, my heart
was bursting with joy.
Though I never got to be runner again,
I’ll never forget the time
that it was me
who tackled Abber Murphy.
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