Elise and I left Friday afternoon and drove the 494 miles to Okeene, Oklahoma for the annual Thanksgiving weekend at Grandma Boeckman’s farm house. Elise’s dad is the oldest of nine siblings. That makes for a lot of people under one roof.
Friday nights at Grandma B.’s have been consistent in the five years that I’ve been spending the weekend with Elise’s family. The women are inside, catching each other up on the happenings of the past year, talking about life, love, families and developing plans to end famine in poor countries.
The men spend all night in the basement drinking beer, smoking, farting, exchanging crude jokes, falsified hunting stories, farting, drinking, playing darts and farting. Darts weren’t the game de jour this year…
This year, it was ‘Balls’. It was decided to call this game ‘Balls’, instead of ‘Ladder Golf‘ because, well, better jokes come out while playing a game of ‘Balls’ where players throw two tennis balls linked together with a nylon rope onto the rungs of a furnace safety cage. No punches were pulled. All ball jokes were told. Dirty balls. Blue balls. Whacking balls. Balls on the floor. The game is called ‘Balls’.
Our game of ‘Balls’ turned into a late night tournament. The elder team was named ‘The Old Farts’, the younger team was dubbed ‘The Teeny Weenies’.
It was one of the more interesting experiences I’ve had during Thanksgiving in Okeene.