Get the Stretcher!

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Watched a lot of football this past weekend. The Bills have been entertaining this year despite the fact they've lost 4 of 6.

My son Sam is in the middle of betting against his Uncle Chuck and I've had to keep an eye on that as well. He lost last year and it cost me $240. Watching Chuck shovel free steak wasn't the best feeling ever.

Sam has a lead so far.

Yet the league has changed since we were young. There are a lot of personal fouls now for hits in the head area and I suppose that was bound to happen since there are a lot of middle-aged men walking around with scrambled brains from having been in the league.

In the Pittsburgh game one of their wide receivers caught a pass and had a clear lane to the end zone. Rather than waltzing over the line he did a flip, landing on his back. He was about six feet in the air.

"Would you do that if you scored?" Sam asked.

"First off, I couldn't get open. Secondly, I would have dropped the throw. Thirdly, I can't do a flip like that. Period. And lastly, if I could pull all of that off they'd have to meet with the stretcher to get me back to the sidelines."

And despite the fact that I was once a world-class athlete, those days are long gone.

I have the date for the surgery on my hip.

The day before Thanksgiving.

"You sure that's when you'd like to do it?" the receptionist asked me.

"I don't wanna' do it at all," I said, "but someone will bring me a plate."

And truth be told all I want is a big-ass bowl of my mother's stuffing anyway.

I'll get it.

"By Friday you'll be up and on it for therapy," the woman said.

I thought about how that is going to feel.

I have a sneaking suspicion I might whine.

"You're going to do what the doctor tells you to do," my beautiful wife said. "I'll kill you, this time, if you try and be a hero."

So the ass over tea kettle flips into the end zone is going to have to wait.

But golf in May is a true possibility, and I have a feeling that I'm going to be back to powering 300 yard drives.

Did I mention I was once world-class?

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