Billy and the Turkey
Shoot
A Thanksgiving Story
By Danny Tillman
Fun in the back yard!
Baby Sister, as well as any other "nursery-agers" in the crowd whose parents or guardians were helping with the dinner preparations or other necessary duties. The crowds of "outside" guests, invited and uninvited (nonetheless welcome), had divided into two groups: some were helping in the front yard & others were spectators and participants in the back yard, where there was later to be a combination of archery, knife-throwing and various sorts of races going on. Children from 4 or thereabouts and up were out back. The ones too young to actually engage in the playing of any of the games were kept safe from harm by a volunteer team of parents, teenagers & adults.
This amazing coordinated multi-tasking activity was only accomplished by the camaraderie that was felt & shared by the crowd due to its combined respect & admiration for Albey Yark. Uncle Everett had brought some inflated inner tubes with him today, and had also grabbed some from Rufus' garage. With these, he organized the first of the featured games in the back yard: an Inner Tube War. Ralph, Rozzy and Lamont, Sonny, Little Brother, Ronnie and Fletcher, Linda and some classmates from school and church were all soon armed with inner tubes.
The inner tube war game!
The Innertube War game consisted of a free-for-all mob of fighters. Each warrior was armed with an inflated inner tube which was slung as a missile at a random victim. The person-target of a hurled inner tube could be knocked down, depending on the victim's size and the speed of the flying tube. The softness of the air-filled rubber prevented any actual injury to all players. Once the tube struck its mark, it would ricochet wildly, bouncing and rolling off in any direction & thus ending up far away. Then the thrower would chase his or her tube in order to retrieve it, which in itself was, or soon would become, more exhausting than the actual tossing of one's tube!
So at any moment, you had players running in every direction after escaping tubes; in various stages of being knocked over; lying on the ground, some getting--or trying to get--back on their feet and getting bowled over again. Yelling, laughing, screaming ... the longer this rowdy ruckus went on, the more & more worn out everyone became. Eventually, it took very little force to knock someone down--IF you still had strength to throw. While this game was going on, other activities were suspended--for the inner tube game took up the entire back yard and more. After about 20 minutes of this, all participants were sprawled on the ground, hardly able to move, and laughing hysterically.