PLAYING AROUND OBSTACLES. The fuss about arranging the Northwestern-Illinois football game to avoid the brick wall reminded me of the games I played on unusual fields. Until I was 10, we played in a large yard with two very big maple trees in the middle. One of them served as second base when we played softball. I knocked myself out once in a touch football game when I ran into one of them while I was looking back to try to catch a pass.
When I was a graduate student, I played in touch football games on a small field where the players had to avoid (or, in some cases, take advantage of) Richard Lippold’s metal sculpture The World Tree.