Dexter Iowa Community Site

Consider this quote from Abe Lincoln

"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves."

I haven’t been to a Barnstomers game in years. I used to go quite regularly with my friend John “Big Dog” Simons. It was always fun to see where our tickets would seat us, including a memorable game in the front row of the sidelines where we spent the majority of the evening trash talking former Iowa State coach Earl Bruce and some big Samoan guy who probably could have crushed our heads between his two pinky fingers.

We loved the Stormers and Arena Football in general. Having something like that in Des Moines, in Vet’s Auditorium was special. We were the Green Bay of Arena Football and we loved it. We watched a young quarterback by the name of Warner cut his teeth on Arena Ball and weren’t the least bit surprised when he went on to achieve greatness in the NFL.

Like all good things, the end was tragic. The owners wanted out of the Barn and those of us who loved them slowly saw the team slip away under the cover of darkness to some unimportant place on the east coast. We, well I, yes I, I was downright bitter about the entire thing. Des Moines not only deserved to have a franchise, it needed it. The birthplace of the idea of Arena Football without a team was like going into Dairy Queen and finding out that you had to go to Long John’s Silvers to get a peanut buster parfait!

So when the team came back I stayed away. I had moved on in a way. It wasn’t that I was still bitter over what had happened, but rather that I’d found other things to do on Saturday nights. As in all things, it took my kids to get me back there. This past Saturday night we loaded up and went to Wells Fargo Arena to see the home opener against the Oklahoma City Dawgz.

I spent a little while teaching the kids about the game, what to watch for and what to remember that was different about playing football indoors. The game started quickly and back and forth the score went. At halftime, the youngest decided that he felt out of place without a cowbell to ring, so after a little searching we found him a little red cowbell of his own to ring to his hearts content, much to the aggravation of his sisters which made it the best five dollars I spent the entire weekend.

He shook and shook and shook that little red bell for the rest of the game. I kept thinking that at some point his arms would get tired and he’d relinquish his hold on the bell, but it was not to be. He got so excited in fact, that he began jumping up and down on his seat while waving the bell wildly in the air. It almost began to make me nervous and I was worried for a minute that he might not calm down enough for the ride home and I’d be driving down the wet interstate with a clanging bell ringing throughout the inside of the truck.

The game was extremely exciting and ended with a victory for the good guys. Doing things like going to games with the kids is always fun, but the most important thing was the lesson that little Max learned. That in life there is always room for more cowbell. I just hope that he remembers that church might not be the place for it.

See you next week…remember, we’re all in this together.