Popcorn

With the start of the NFL pre-season games, I started reminiscing about a big silver popcorn bowl, and an old, beat up blanket on the living room floor. It occurred to me as I thought about the popcorn parties, that we inadvertently trained our kids to like sports. Wilbur would come home from a day at work. He would take a hot bath because he was out in the cold weather all day long “playing in the mud,” in his words. Then, he would pop the popcorn. I would tell the kids to spread out a blanket. The reason for the blanket was to protect the living room carpet. I don’t know if the blanket really did offer protection, but it made me feel better about chowing down popcorn in the living room. In the fall we would watch the Pittsburg Steelers playing the Dallas cowboys or whoever else was playing that week. Or after November, the Lakers would be playing the Celtics while we all crammed popcorn into our mouths. That popcorn must have sent the subliminal message to the kids that sports were gooooood.

Football and basketball were our sports of choice. We never watched baseball: partly because, in my never-to-be-humble opinion, baseball is twenty minutes of action stretched over four hours, and partly because the baseball season is in the summer. Popcorn popping in the summer was rare. When the kids were young, Wilbur’s summmer hours were from “can see to can’t see.” He wasn’t around very often to pop popcorn, and he doesn’t seem to like baseball as much as basketball and football. For the rest of the family, the cool evening was a great time to lounge outside on the patio or read a book out loud that we checked out of the library.

With the first NFL game, though, the popcorn popper would start. I would have liked to post some pictures of the family crowded around the popcorn bowl. It's funny how we didn't always take pictures of the normal, everyday thingas we did. Popcorn popping and eating on a game night happened often and was delicious.