Men will always be boys

WE ARE A LAND

of too many Huck Finns and not enough rivers. So here we are again, out playing touch football on a day that’s warm and soft as a good slipper. The porch needs painting. The dog needs a bath. Several marriages could use a little work. We haven’t indulged our twitchy kids in, like, three hours. For a while, all that can wait.

“Your ball,” I say.

“You sure?”

“Take the ball,” I tell the other team, and we start another game.

For men of a certain age, some things become immediately clear in a weekend game of touch football. First, that the human body was not made for running. It was designed, essentially, for sitting on the couch and quaffing soda drinks and beer, in a semi-erect position, back curled like a question mark.

Second, that in the glorious history of man -- full of wars, disputes, angry phone calls, hurt feelings, botched toasts, broken hearts, smashed noses and bad haircuts -- one thing can be very certain: No touch football player ever counted the requisite three seconds before rushing the quarterback. Not one.

It goes against our collective male natures to count before rushing -- one of those things we just can’t seem to do. Like slowing for a yellow light. Or wiping down the shower.

Sure, we’ll shout out “1,000-2,000-3,000,” but by the time we’ve finished “2,000,” we have already crossed the line of scrimmage and are running while we count, arms flailing, lungs afire.

Check the films. Ask around. There might’ve been a game one time, perhaps at some church picnic, in which someone counted the requisite three seconds before rushing the quarterback. But I doubt it.

“You didn’t count,” the conversation usually goes.

“So?”

“Do over,” the first guy says, and so we do.

The great Jim Murray, who saw a game or two in his life, once quipped that in sports “anger is always a proper substitute for logic.” Never more so than in touch football.

Typically, we will spend five minutes arguing over a two-point conversion in a game in which one team is six touchdowns ahead. For connoisseurs of the absurd, these are moments to live for.

“He was in.”

“No, he wasn’t.”

“Yeah, he was.”

“The ball crossed the line.”

“No, it didn’t.”

“Yeah, it did.”

Then someone, usually a lawyer, will make a big sweeping motion with his arm showing exactly where the goal line is. Then someone from the other team, also a lawyer, will make a big sweeping motion showing exactly where he thinks the goal line is. In 20 seconds of watching men play touch football, you can completely understand why we’ll never have peace in the Middle East.

“OK, your ball,” someone finally says, and we set up for another drive.

It’s not great football, but it’s not horrible either. Eugene played college ball at Colgate. Fred at Harvard. Craig is deceptively speedy for a man the size of a beer truck. David throws finesse passes, light as a paycheck. Hank zings daggers. Like a horror movie, our games are best watched through fingers clenching your face. We find the end zone the way bacteria find an open wound.

“Whoa,” Russ grimaces.

“You OK?”

“What’s this muscle?” he asks, pointing just above the ankle.

“For me, that would be the groin,” Don says.

“That’s just you,” someone notes.

“That’s just me,” he says.

Sure, we have our little aches and pains. As a precaution, I now make it a point to never leave the earth. Seems impossible, but at my age I no longer value vertical leaps. I prefer to stay in constant contact with our planet, thank you very much. Jump? Sorry, I’ve seen too many weird things happen.

So we play in pain. We play in rain. We play in the late afternoon as the sun tumbles over the mountains. We play because a football dropping perfectly into a pair of outstretched hands never gets old, even as we do.

“I feel a tingle,” Bill says after a big play.

“Congratulations,” I say.

“No wait, I feel two,” he says as if searching his pockets for his cell.

We have been doing this now for almost five years. At 4 p.m., every winter Sunday.

Our wives, our Becky Thatchers, don’t really understand. They fear for our collar bones. Our knees. Our cold and hungry hearts.

“You guys aren’t 25 anymore,” my wife reminded me when I told her that Russ was injured.

“We’re not?”

“No, you’re not,” she says.

Don’t worry, boys. Neither are they.

Chris Erskine can be reached at chris.erskine@latimes.com.