Flicklives

Last Summary Update: 01-19-2008

Football Fun
Airdate: Thursday - October 18, 1962

WOR Show
Original Airing

audio

(NOTE ABOUT TIME REFERENCES: Since there are many different copies of shows out there from different sources, all time references are from the beginning of one single recorded copy, since various copies, depending on when the recordee started recording, had news at the beginning or shortened themes. The times would vary from copy to copy.)

First Spoken Line After Theme Ends

Have you ever had the sneaky suspicion that any moment. . . .

Show Description

[ Courtesy: Gary Hines - - ]   
  Football Fun, Disney to build Ford Exhibit for Worlds Fair, NY Yankees win series, basement-electric shock, avenging angel, football team, freshman picked, #65 uniform for Varsity, with Schwartz, Broken nose & misc. injuries      
  

[ Courtesy: GROK Summary - - ]   
  This is another classic Jean Shepherd monologue (WOR, October 1962), a digressive blend of cultural observation, Midwestern childhood memory, and a central football anecdote. The through-line is the human sense of impending retribution - the " gigantic fist" from the clouds - and how people experience (or mythologize) getting " belted." 

Fear of the wrath of God
Shepherd opens with the persistent suspicion that after you've " done it again,"  a giant fist (the wrath of God or fate) will strike. He notes this is a distinctly human thing; animals don't brood over sins. He recalls watching Kennedy's inauguration on TV and seeing the lectern begin to smoke while a speaker intoned pious words - briefly imagining it as an omen that the forces of good or evil had finally arrived. He jokes about building a Noah-style houseboat (300 cubits long) so he can be captain and not get left behind.

Midwest fundamentalism vs. New York
He contrasts the anxious, hymn-singing Midwest (where people half-expect judgment on a Sunday morning) with New Yorkers, who lack that deep sense of a male fist descending. Midwesterners never quite feel they've " got it made." 

The basement shock story
A long, sensory childhood memory of the family basement: damp concrete, coal smell, old tennis shoes, sour pickles, wooden pillars. Kids hauled ashes; the basement was their domain. His mother had a mystical dread of electricity and " live wires."  As a kid, he runs a frayed lamp cord to his workbench, ignores her warnings, and gets a severe shock while standing in wet moccasins on the damp floor. She throws the main switch. The incident becomes permanent ammunition: even years later as an adult she warns him " don't fool with the wires."  He frames it not as Ohm's law but as having taunted the avenging forces.

Belters, beltees, and random distribution
This leads to reflections on who gets struck and who doesn't (David Merrick never seems to; certain weepy types suspect it might happen any minute). He discusses the " laws of random distribution." Some people get kicked more than others with no clear reason. There are belters and beltees; most people secretly know which they are.

The football injury
The main story: as a chunky, pugnacious freshman with a low center of gravity, he makes the high-school team and is one of four freshmen kept on the varsity. He rides the bench for most of the season in his purple jersey and silver helmet. In the bitter-cold Thanksgiving game against the arch-rivals (ground hard as marble), the coach finally puts him in on defense. He lines up, gets hit hard, and blacks out. He wakes in the school basement with doctors setting his nose (sticks, pliers, blood everywhere). On the bus home his head is the size of a hay bale, with black eyes extending far down and various tubes and bandages. At school he becomes a temporary hero and enjoys the attention so much that when the cast is ready to come off, he fights to keep it. He realizes something about the secret desire (in war or sports) for a " friendly" wound that marks one as a hero and explains things. He ends by saying what actually hit him is a story for another night.

Overall tone and point: Humorous, sensory, and philosophical in Shepherd's usual style. It uses concrete Midwestern details (basement smells, moccasins, football cleats on frozen ground) to explore the human expectation of retribution, the way misfortune can be turned into a badge or myth, and the random nature of who gets "belted."  The football cast becomes a temporary, satisfying niche - much like the gold-star slant lines in the earlier monologue.      
  