As I was driving home from Augusta last night I reminisced about Christmas past. Mary’s family always came together during Christmas. Every year we gathered in such exotic places as Arkadelphia, AR, Jackson, MS, Starkeville, MS, Macon, GA, Doe River Gorge, TN, and Hamilton, AL. As the families grew so did our gatherings. We all drove from hours away to get together. These are great memories!
I remember one particular Christmas morning. We were living in Pensacola, FL. It was 8°. In Pensacola, FL! We only had Anne and Sarah in those days. We all piled in the car and drove to Arkadelphia, AR, where it was just as cold with lots of snow and ice. And everybody else drove there in ridiculous and dangerous conditions!
And then there was football. Mary was the first of her family to get married. And she married me! When I joined the family, Mark was the only brother at home. He and I would go out to the backyard and play “punt return”. That is, we would stand at opposite ends of the backyard, one of us would punt the ball to the other who would attempt to return it for a touchdown. This was tackle punt return.
After a while, her brother Ronnie started coming home, and he joined Mark and me in the backyard. Since you can’t play punt return with three people, we made some changes and played “goal line stand.” That is, the ball was placed at the 3 yard line, two guys were the defense and one guy had four chances to score. Again, this was tackle.
Then Dave came along. He married Mary’s sister Debbie. But before they married he joined us in the backyard. Now we played all-out, tackle football, two vs two. We had a blast!!
Now back to the Christmas it was 8° in Pensacola and colder with ice and snow in Arkadelphia. As was our annual tradition, we all drove on icy roads to gather together. We were committed to playing football, so we all bundled up and headed off to a field to play in the freezing cold ice and snow. As we were trudging out the back door, Mary’s mom told us what a dumb idea this was and yelled out to us, "If you get hurt don't come crying to me." We laughed among ourselves and went on to play the famous “Ice Bowl.” And no one got hurt.
Yes, we had great times in The McDougald Christmas Gathering.
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