School has started, the weather is turning cooler, Notre Dame just beat my college team (Michigan State, darn!) and everyone is thinking about getting back into football and basketball.
It’s time to start tailgating or staking out your favorite TV and sofa combination for prime watching. We never seem to get over feeling that the start of September is really the start of a new year. When you have kids in school, it’s even more intense because it really is the start of a new year. New possibilities, new friends, new ways to have fun.
A few of our colleagues here at Spilsbury actually venture out to go to games and report back to me what they see happening outside of the game – in the parking lot, on the grassy areas, in the parks before and after the game. The classic game of Frisbee is alive and well as it is totally compact and portable and while not necessarily easy to play, there are no rules to learn. We love Frisbee at Spilsbury which is why our Light Up Flying Disc is a perennial best-seller for us year after year – you can play after dark, which in the Fall gets earlier and earlier.
The more adventurous gamers actually bring their own football and play a quick pick-up game before the real one begins. Football is a great tailgating hobby, cutting the boredom between eating, drinking and game time.
Our most recent sightings have been focused on a game called many different things – bean bag toss, bag toss, corn hole, corn holer. The beauty of the game is its simplicity. Two boards with legs and a hole in the center are placed opposite each other. Each team gets 4 bags. The object is to get the bag in the hole. You get points for coming close. You get more points for getting the bag in the hole. Simple, yes? Lots of fun, big yes!
This bean bag toss craze is huge right now on college campuses, neighborhood backyard parties and there are even bean bag toss tournaments for those who take their fun very seriously! I like it because I can understand the rules (very few), the skill is fairly universal (throwing a bag filled with beans or corn) and it’s played in a group. In my experience, the simpler the game, the more popular and wide spread the acceptance level. Who has time to figure stuff out?
So…when we see a trend, we like to jump right in ourselves! Yes, we have an addiction to “lighting things up” here at Spilsbury. Why? Because it’s fun, and because it makes the fun last longer – you don’t have to go inside so early due to darkness. We are excited about our own version of Light Up Bean Bag Toss coming out this fall. The bags light up, the board lights up – hey, when it snows, bring it in the house and turn off the lights to make it more challenging! Or maybe, more romantic???
