Use dem legs bhoy

I was walking back from Gather in the early evening of suburban Berkeley when I came across football practice. Now to me, US footballers look humorous at the best of times. All that padding up top and those leggings down bottom only works to exacerbate the oddity of their shape. All triangular, like a slice of pie. Now that you have that mental image, imagine the padding and the bobbly helmet on the body of a rag tag bunch of eight or nine year old boys. Hilarious! Parents and friends lined the outside fence of the park where 10 or 11 different teams practiced maneuvers and passes. Feeding straight into all the cultural stereotypes, one poor kid was slowly jogging off the center of the field wailing while his dad was yelling from the sidelines above all the cheering of well meaning parents, “Boy you din’t get in der and use yor legs bhoy – you gotta use dem legs bhoy dats what dem for.” No pressure kid.