Champs reap benefits in ‘Calvinball’

Two years ago, according to long-standing family custom, the Holyoke clan met for Thanksgiving and a basketball game broke out.

OK. Calling what actually transpired “basketball” may be akin to calling a bunch of grazing buffaloes a “dance troupe.” We recognize that, and choose to call it “Calvinball,” after the patron saint of making up the rules as you go along: cartoon hero Calvin of Calvin and Hobbes.

Calling this group “The Holyoke clan” is also presumptuous. For that, I apologize. There are, in fact, a significant number of people who show up for the Thanksgiving festivities who aren’t officially “Holyokes.”

Still, while not Holyoke in name, we have found that the vast majority do tend to share a common Holyoke attitudinal trait, alternately called “competitiveness,” (by those perched on one of the branches of our family tree), or “sore losers” (by everyone else).

Perhaps that competitiveness (or its alternative) is a reason that the “big” Holyoke Thanksgivings – the ones that swell to 20 or 25 eager-eaters – only happen every two years: It may take that long for some of us to lick our wounds and get over our holiday (Calvinball) defeats.

Which brings me to my cousin, Vaughn, who, for the past two years, has been either licking his wounds, or blaming the fact that he’s had to lick his wounds on his Calvinball partner, Carl.

The uninitiated may watch a Calvinball game and get the idea that they’re watching basketball.

They would be wrong.

In Calvinball, nearly everything goes. There are no refs. There are few rules. And we usually find out what those rules are after Vaughn points them out to us. If it snows, we don’t dribble. If it moves, we foul it. If it doesn’t, we step on it.

Simple.

And the goals of Calvinball are simple as well: Win. Take home the coveted Udaman (pronounced U-da-MAN… get it?) Trophy.

Then spend the next 24 months, or 730 days, or 17,520 hours (this part is so much fun, it makes sense to quantify it as clearly as possible) telling the Calvinball losers (Vaughn and Carl) exactly what kind of losers they are.

Gosh, that’s been fun. So much fun, in fact, that my brother and I figure we ought to continue it for another two years … make that 1,051,200 minutes.

Now, it’s sometimes tough to work these subtle jabs into normal conversation. But we get by.

Like at Christmas. Say Vaughn stops by my parents’ house, and my mom has one of her holiday CDs blaring in the background.

I might say something witty (and very, very subtle) like this: “Hey Vaughn. This song reminds me of how Glen and I thumped you guys like little drummer boys in Calvinball. Pa-rum-pa-pum-PUM!”

Last time the Udaman Trophy went up for grabs, Glen and I almost lost on a technicality: Our opponents found out that we’d actually come up with a game plan before waddling out to the court after dinner. That (we found out, after Vaughn told us) is frowned upon in the topsy-turvy world of elite Calvinball.

This year, we won’t make the same mistake. (Glen, if you’re reading this, we’ll do the same thing we did last time … just don’t let the losers find out).

Not that strategy should make much of a difference: Glen’s been playing. And I’ve been training.

Well, maybe training isn’t the word. “Preparing” is more like it.

For two years, I kept my eye on the prize (which is easy, since I keep my Udaman Trophy on my desk at work), and figured out ways to become more of a low-post force.

I settled on eating, and apparently, it worked: I may well be immobile. But I’m also immovable.

Now all I’ve got to do is wait for something to foul. Or step on.

John Holyoke is a NEWS sportswriter. His e-mail address is jholyoke@bangordailynews.net