WHAT IT WAS, WAS FOOTBALL

Andy Griffith - 1954


It was back last October, I believe it was.
We was going to hold a tent service off at this college town,
and we got there about dinner time on Saturday.
Different ones of us thought that we ought to get us a mouthful to eat before we set up the tent.
So we got off the truck and followed this little bunch of people
through this small little bitty patch of woods there,
and we came up on a big sign that says, "Get something to Eat Here."

I went up and got me two hot dogs and a big orange drink,
and before I could take a mouthful of that food,
this whole raft of people come up around me and got me to where I couldn't eat nothing, up like,
and I dropped my big orange drink.
Well, friends, they commenced to move, and there wasn't so much that I could do but move with them.

Well, we commenced to go through all kinds of doors and gates and I don't know what- all,
and I looked up over one of 'em and it says, "North Gate."
We kept on a-going through there, and pretty soon we come up on a young boy and he says,
"Ticket, please."
And I says, "Friend, I don't have a ticket;
I don't even know where it is that I'm a-going!"
Well, he says, "Come on out as quick as you can."
And I says, "I'll do 'er; I'll turn right around the first chance I get."

Well, we kept on a-moving through there,
and pretty soon everybody got where it was that they was a-going,
because they parted and I could see pretty good.
And what I seen was this whole raft of people a-sittin' on these two banks
and a-lookin at one another across this pretty little green cow pasture.

Somebody had took and drawed white lines all over it and drove posts in it,
and I don't know what all,
and I looked down there and I seen five or six convicts a running up and down
and a-blowing whistles .
And then I looked down there and I seen these pretty girls wearin' these little bitty short dresses
and a-dancing around, and so I thought I'd sit down and see what it was that was a-going to happen.

About the time I got set down good I looked down there
and I seen thirty or forty men come a-runnin' out of one end of a great big outhouse down there
and everybody where I was a-settin' got up and hollered!
And I asked this fella that was a sittin' beside of me,
"Friend, what is it that they're a-hollerin' for?
Well, he whopped me on the back and he says,
"Buddy, have a drink!" I says,
"Well, I believe I will have another big orange.
I got it and set back down.

When I got there again I seen that the men had got in two little bitty bunches down there
real close together, and they voted.
They elected one man apiece,
and them two men come out in the middle of that cow pasture
and shook hands like they hadn't seen one another in a long time.
Then a convict came over to where they was a-standin',
and he took out a quarter and they commenced to odd man right there!
After a while I seen what it was they was odd-manning for.
It was that both bunchesfull of them wanted this funny lookin little pumpkin to play with.
And I know, friends, that they couldn't eat it because they kicked it the whole evenin'
and it never busted.

Both bunchesful wanted that thing.
One bunch got it and it made the other bunch just as mad as they could be!
Friends, I seen that evenin' the awfulest fight that I ever have seen in all my life !!
They would run at one -another and kick one- another
and throw one another down and stomp on one another
and grind their feet in one another
and I don't know what-
all and just as fast as one of 'em would get hurt,
they'd take him off and run another one on !!

Well, they done that as long as I set there, but pretty soon this boy that had said
"Ticket, please." He come up to me and said,
"Friend, you're gonna have to leave because it is that you don't have a ticket."
And I says, "Well, all right." And I got up and left.

I don't know friends, to this day, what it was that they was a doin' down there,
but I have studied about it.
I think it was that it's some kindly of a contest where they see which bunchful of them men can take that pumpkin and run from one end of that cow pasture to the other without gettin' knocked down or steppin' in somethin'.




(Contributed by  - May 2007)