Pater Familias

CHILDREN’S GAMES—BOWS AND ARROWS. Some of the games I have been describing recently have an element of danger to them. A friend of mine told me that when he was about ten, he and his friends would use a bow to shoot an arrow into the air, and then put their arms over their heads and wait in excitement for it to come down.

CHILDREN’S GAMES—BOUNCE THE APPLE. Another invented game, suitable for middle school students and above. At a lunch table, one player bounces an apple to another player. The other player bounces the apple to somebody else. Eventually somebody loses. If you have never played, you may not able to imagine what happens to the apple when its internal structure has been weakened sufficiently.

GAMES LAW STUDENTS PLAY. Some law students I knew played a game on Saturday nights that can’t be played by others unless a room—or rather a closet—that met certain requirements is available. The closet in question had a door about six feet high and contained a refrigerator about five feet high. The game consisted of taking a running jump onto the top of the refrigerator without knocking yourself out. (I was told there were losers). I believe there was some drinking involved.

CHILDREN’S GAMES—BUCKETHEAD. A game our children invented as toddlers was buckethead. The child simply puts a paper bag or—apparently better—a plastic pail over his head and runs around as fast as possible (and running into as many things as possible). Apparently an even better game is Doubles Buckethead—two heads, one container. Gales of happy laughter.

CHILDREN’S GAMES—FARM YARD CROQUET-GOLF. Another game we invented was a form of golf played with croquet equipment. There were 18 holes. Each player took turns specifying where the wicket that was the target would be placed and where all the players would start (“tee off”). The beauty of the game was that a player who fell behind had an incentive when it was his or her turn to make the “hole” as difficult as possible so that there would be more opportunity to catch up. We did not have a name for the game. I have called it “farm yard croquet-golf” because the first time we played it was a farm yard when we were visiting cousins in Iowa. In that first game, the 18th hole began with the players teeing off from the top of a chicken coop. I forget where the final wicket was placed, but I remember that “par” was a very high number.

CHILDREN’S GAMES—SOCCER BALL TAG. When we were in fifth grade (about ten years old), the favorite game was one we invented: soccer ball tag. It was simple: one player was “it” and he had the soccer ball. Any body who was touched with the soccer ball also became “it.” Soon there were two teams: those who were “it” and those who were not “it.” The beauty of the game was that there was only one soccer ball, and players could go anywhere around the schoolyard. The tactic for the “its” was to try to capture somebody who was not “it” and to hold him (for some reason, the girls didn’t play) down until the soccer ball could be brought (from perhaps the other side of the school) to administer the touch. The others who were not “it” would try to free their teammate. Every recess there were fights all over the schoolyard. It was swell.

NORTHWESTERN STORY—SCANDAL. I have been unable, after a somewhat diligent search on the internet, to find confirmation of this Northwestern story, but I have a distinct memory of Arthur Link, the distinguished biographer of Woodrow Wilson, telling the story in class. After Warren G. Harding died, Nan Britton published a book entitled THE PRESIDENT’S DAUGHTER which alleged that she had had a long-term affair with Harding and that Harding had fathered her daughter. The book was a path breaker in describing Presidential shenanigans. There were scandalous details. Harding was much older than Britton, who claimed to have been only 20 when she lost her virginity to him. Britton claimed that many of their sexual encounters had taken place in a coat closet in the White House. The Northwestern connection was that Britton had been a secretary at Northwestern. I recall that Link enjoyed reading out two statements from Britton about her first encounter with Harding: that there had been no improprieties and that she had been gratified after the encounter to find money in her stocking.

NORTHWESTERN STORY—DECORUM. Kids, when I was at Northwestern over forty years ago, it was a dry campus in a dry town. Women were permitted to wear slacks only on very cold days. Willard Hall was a women’s dorm named after Frances Willard, who was known as an important figure in the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU). When we were at Northwestern, my brother Elmer became curious about Frances Willard, who was often mentioned in connection with Northwestern history and with the temperance movement, and he read up on her. Willard left the university in 1874 over differences of opinion between her and University President Charles Fowler on her authority over Northwestern’s female students. Apparently the dispute was over whether women students would be allowed to walk with men after midweek chapel. Willard was opposed to it. She later reflected on the change in her life resulting from her resignation. She had gone from a life on a college campus to a life in hotels, saloons and railroad stations. She devoted the rest of her life to the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU).

NORTHWESTERN STORY—HEROISM. Northwestern appears to be a typical middle-sized Midwestern university, but as with any location where people have been, there is the romance of past lives. Forty years or so ago, when I was a student, there was a plaque on one of the buildings that moved me every time I passed it. It commemorated a student at Garrett Theological Seminary, which is enclosed by the Northwestern campus, who had rescued a large number of shipwreck victims from Lake Michigan. I remember from the plaque that he had swum out to rescue each victim and bring him back, that his health was broken by the effort and that he kept asking when his effort stopped, “Did I do my best?” I found this link which fills in some details that I had forgotten. His name was Edward Spencer, the ship was The Lady Elgin, the year was 1860 and 287 people died in the wreck. Spencer saved 18 people and “was allegedly confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life.”

SAUL BELLOW AND NORTHWESTERN. Saul Bellow is the only Nobel Prize winner in literature to graduate from my alma mater, Northwestern. I have always treasured his statement that transferring to Northwestern from the University of Chicago was a turning point in his life because the University of Chicago was intellectually intimidating and Northwestern was not. Here is the quote: “the [University of Chicago] was, for me, a terrifying place. The dense atmosphere of learning, of cultural effort, heavily oppressed me; I felt that wisdom and culture were immense and that I was hopelessly small. In 1935 I transferred to Northwestern University. Northwestern had less prestige, but my teachers there appreciated me more. And of course I wanted to be appreciated. My intelligence revived somewhat and I graduated with honors in anthropology and sociology in 1937.”