My house sits on a corner lot, which has no real prestige value, but does afford an extra long expanse of lawn for football games. I have long aspired to own the house where the neighborhood kids play. Mission accomplished. Now I need to talk Mrs. Jones Top Ten into installing the sport court and I will host the basketball games, as well. But today, I have football action. Well, actually, I have organized a "dive into the leaf" pile contest. The kids needed to take a break from bashing each other-the tackling had morphed into hitting and kicking. I assessed personal foul penalties and created a new game. Of course, regardless of the rules of play, boys possess the roughhouse gene. It is who they are. Adults cannot change this. I even went to my local Academy and bought a set of flags and belts. Boys figure out a way to pummel each other in flag football, as well. Running full speed and diving headfirst into a pile of leaves can also produce injuries, but they will be self-inflicted. That takes away the one thing that boys relish most of all: reprisals.

The photographer arrived early. Team picture day for four-year-olds presents a degree of difficulty somewhere between landing a triple salchow and performing open-heart surgery on a Meerkat. Irish weddings are easier to choreograph. We have the 8:10 slot, which means we start promptly at 8:37. I have already dropped Son One off for an 8:00 basketball game. Son Two hit the soccer field at 8:30 and I coach Son Three's kinderhoops game at 9:00.The home team boys play on TV at 11:00 and they are nice enough to drop a 40-point first-half shutout on the opposition, which assuages any guilt I might have about Son Three's 12:45 basketball practice. I could quit doing this to myself, quit coaching all my son's basketball teams, that is, but it is not my nature, as the scorpion would say.

My Uncle Jim Silcott, at 19-years-old, piloted landing craft in the Pacific, one of the more dangerous jobs during World War II. When I was 19, I served as a camp counselor. That’s the big difference between Jim’s generation and mine, but, more to the point, it is the big difference between me and thousands of men and women my own age. They are the ones who guarantee that the rest of us work in air-conditioned buildings and eat out on Friday night and attend our kid’s soccer game, all without a second thought to our personal safety. All of you know people like this; if you don’t, then you need to get out more. We dedicate an entire day each year to remembering those who serve today and those who came before them, certainly a small gesture relative to a great debt. Normally, the dignitaries make speeches, the veterans parade, we salute the flag and everyone goes home. But normal doesn’t live here anymore. A violent act interrupted normal in Fort Hood. The enemy attacked, one of their own, on their home base, where safety used to be guaranteed.

Consider the duck: a beautiful animal, regularly shot for the amusement, and dining pleasure, of the American people. In orange sauce in Chinatown, on tiny plates with toast points in fine restaurants, stuffed unceremoniously with chicken and then jammed, even less ceremoniously, into a turkey for a New Orleans Thanksgiving, our nation needs ducks. We have an entire conservation society founded on the premise that we require a limitless supply, so that we can continue to shoot them. Even the humanized duck finds only second billing. Our two most famous caricature ducks are supporting actors, second bananas, and unimpressive ones at that. Daffy presents equal parts annoying and moronic, with a healthy side of mental instability. Donald is a dim-witted curmudgeon, a step behind his mischievous nephews, Huey, Louie and Dewey. If that weren’t enough, the sailor suit suggests, uncomfortably, that he might be a good candidate for the Village People. Duck as noun finds its most positive connotation when the creatures are placidly pictured on a stamp, or on the wall of a country club card room. As verb, duck is no less inspiring, describing only a defensive action, usually accompanied by “and cover.”

Fishing out a last cold beer,

Freezing my hands diggin' round in here,

I know better than to be behind a wheel,

Hangin' in the back tryin' to get the feel

Cotton flyin' past on the passenger side,

Moving fast and passing wide

Settlin' in and thinkin' ‘bout you

I got me the too drunk to drive to Snyder blues

Low hung moon, guiding a path

An hour to go, doing the math

I hate this game. I also love this game. That's a problem. For one Saturday each October I know what it means to be mentally ill. Dr. Spock would be aghast at my parenting today; starting with an apoplectic fit when the six-year old comes home from his soccer game and changes into a bright red t-shirt. I hustle him quickly into the "Property of Texas Athletic Department" t-shirt Mrs. Jones Top Ten bought him before the season began. That's not the worst of it. They-the six and the four-year-old-do not understand that this is not a game and Dad gets a little bit tightly wound when he is climbed on like a jungle gym during a key third and eight (which Texas does not convert). Mrs. Jones Top Ten wonders aloud why they don't have some special genetic code embedded within them to know not to mess with the Alphas during Texas/OU. Surely God places some survival-of-the-fittest instinct within kids that prevents them from being thinned prematurely from the herd when they launch small plastic balls at each other while a football game is being played. Beer helps somewhat, but I swear the bottles are getting smaller. The last one couldn't have been more than five ounces. Now it is empty and the Texas offense still reeks.

A half-played game of Risk sits on my dining room table. So does my laptop, since a host of teenagers settling for any sleeping space available have asserted squatter's rights over my office. I'm surrounded by carnage, the green team making a strong push to control Asia using Indonesia as a staging area-classic Risk strategy, complete with a 12-pack of empty Dr. Peppers. I'm glad kids still play Risk in the era of endless on-line entertainment and helpful public service announcements that teach kids how to "play" and encourage adults to actually ask their doctors questions. God bless the Nanny State. Risk teaches two politically incorrect concepts: world domination and gambling. The only better way for a bunch of teenage boys to learn about such things on a Saturday night after they have been ordered inside is, of course, to watch SEC football.