Families find fun in hose-head wrestling

Ah, the Olympic spirit. Even jaded Americans can't help but feel pride to see their countrymen standing on the medal podium wearing wreaths of olive leaves.

Greece hasn't had this much attention since Zeus and his cronies were pulling the strings in ancient times.

Once a religious festival, the Olympics have become a television spectacle -- tourism with a scorecard.

While the Olympics were wrapping up on television Sunday night, our family was participating in a local "Olympics" competition at our church.

There's nothing like some sports competition to make even middle-aged adults feel like kids again.

With fun in mind, we -- youths and adults -- gathered on the front lawn to compete for gold paper medals.

We spent the evening tossing watermelons, playing badminton with plastic pink flamingoes as rackets, wrestling with pantyhose on our heads and generally creating quite a sight.

It takes more than Christian fellowship to get out on a church parking lot with pantyhose on your head and twirl around a leg of the panty hose weighted down with an orange in it, and all of this without using your hands. It takes a whole lot of faith.

The goal was to "wrestle" the panty hose off your competitors. I participated in the event, finishing fourth. I beat out my oldest daughter, Becca, who was thrilled she didn't have to look silly for long.

A Cape Girardeau city councilman ended up being the "hose head" champion, helping his team to accumulate the most points.

I must confess when you are participating in such silly events, you can't help but laugh at the good-natured kidding of fellow church members, which is a sport all its own.

Bailey may have been in the best situation. At age 8, she was too young to participate in the competition. That meant she was free to sit there and laugh at us all. She had no trouble doing that.

In the end, we all enjoyed root-beer floats.

Zeus probably would have been amused by our antics.

Fortunately, none of the competition was televised. If it had been, it would have been billed a comedy.

Still, if it wasn't for the real Olympics, I might never have had to compete in hose-head wrestling. It was truly a humbling experience.

Add a few sports like this to the real Olympics and international competition would never be the same again.

Basketball, swimming and gymnastics are common sports in the Olympics. But none of them make a fashion statement like hose-head wrestling.

Besides, it beats sitting in front of the television set which two Grand Rapids, Mich., teenagers did recently.

They logged 52 consecutive hours of watching television in an International House of Pancakes restaurant, breaking the world record by nearly two hours.

My children watch their share of TV. But they couldn't begin to watch that much television. For one thing, they couldn't go that long without shopping or critiquing my hose-head wrestling moves.

Next time around I think I'll try flamingo badminton. At least if you lose in that competition, you can blame it on the plastic flamingo.

Mark Bliss is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.