LITTLE ROCK — With apologies to Andy Griffith
It was a couple of weekends ago, I believe it was. We was going to Laman Library over there in North Little Rock on account of to get us a book to read and maybe look at those magazines with the pretty girls on the cover. There was a commotion over at the plaza, and different ones of us thought that we ought to get us an eyeful of what that was.
So we followed this bunch of college students and teenagers and came up on a bunch more of them young people, and they invited us to come on in. So we did.
First thing I saw was a pile of brooms and on one end of the plaza there was set up three rings about six feet up in the air, and on the other end of the plaza was three more rings set up about six feet in the air. They was.
Well, the young people commenced to line up seven on a side, kneeling down near those rings and putting their heads down and closing their eyes and holding on to a broom. They was.
And in the middle of the plaza were four soccer balls, and one young fella with a tennis ball wrapped up with tape and stuck in the back of his pants and they called him a snitch. They did, and he didn’t seem to take no offense at such an insult. He was mighty happy to be the snitch. He was. Now one of the young fellas yelled out: “Beaters, raise your hands!” And they did. And that young fella yelled out: “Chasers, raise your hands!” And they did. And that young fella yelled out: “Keepers, raise your hands!” And they did. Right there in the middle there was the four soccer balls, sort of lined up in a row, and that snitch fella, well, he ran over to one of the balls and kicked it a mighty whomp, and down the hill it went. And then he run oft a ways away to where nobody could see him and hid behind some bushes. He did. And another fella, an older fella, you could tell he was new at this, was told to blow his whistle and yell out, loud as he could, “The snitch has done run oft!” And he did, except he didn’t have no whistle and he couldn’t yell too loud.
When they heard the snitch had run oft, all the players, seven on each side, commenced to jump up and holler and shout and put their broomsticks between their legs and rush to the middle of the field as if they was witches or warlocks or something. Only they didn’t fly off like that Harry Potter fella because of Laman Library has more than its fair share of gravity, in addition to several books on the subject plus some magazines, except gravity magazines don’t have pretty girls on the cover. They don’t.
Even though they couldn’t fly, all those young people — boys and girls both — rushed up to the soccer balls and picked them up and proceeded to throw them at each other, and laughing, which was hard because running full speed with a broomstick between your legs is counter to common sense, and pretty soon they was all gasping for breath and sweating something awful. They was. But they was having a mighty good time. They really was.
About this time some of those young people asked me did I want to run around some with a broomstick between my legs, and I said no thanks, because at my age that seemed like a bad idea, being allergic to gravity and exertion and what-all.
Well, I was trying to stay out of the way when a crowd of these young people came up around me and we all ran lickety-split to one set of those rings. And one of them jumped up to throw a ball through a ring, only another one was dead set against that happening and so he jumped up and hollered, “Now don’t you do no such thang!” He did.
And he swatted that ball clean across the plaza, but another one of those youngsters sneaked in with another ball and tossed it through the ring when the other, the keeper, wasn’t looking, and that was ruled to be worth some points but I’m not sure how many because there wasn’t no scoreboard and wasn’t nobody really keeping score.
About this time one of the players found the snitch, and chased him all over until they was both out of breath, and the player grabbed hold of the tennis ball with the tape on it and proclaimed that he was the winner and, doggone it, give me 50 points. Only there wasn’t no scoreboard and nobody was keeping score anyway. But they was having fun. They was. Which seemed to be the point of this game, which I think it was, a game that is.
I don’t know, friends, but after about an hour all these young people needed a water break. They did. And I was tired, too, from chasing them around asking what in the world it was that they was doing. That’s when I found out that some of these young people are students at Hendrix College. They are. And their names are David Harris and Ben Fish and Felicia Walker and Mandi Taylor and Ashley Gallagher and Anna Pittman and Katelyn Searvogel and Anna Reine. And they were there to teach this here game to anyone who wanted to play. Because these Hendrix College students are going to New York City pretty soon to compete in the worldwide tournament and they’re already ranked 70th in the world out of 100 teams. They are.
Well, we never did get our book or look at the magazines because we was too tuckered out from playing this game.
But we did find out what they called it.
What it was, friends, was Quidditch.
Inspired by Andy Griffith’s famous comedy routine, “What It Was, Was Football.”
ActiveStyle, Pages 25 on 10/31/2011