It was a nice, sunny September afternoon. Perfect for a game of catch with the football between father and son. I took Ethan out in the back and we play for no more than five minutes and he asked:

“What can we do to make this more exciting?”

Does’t he understand? It’s CATCH! Father and son! It’s America!

I think he appreciates the sentiment, but the question remained. I went searching through our garage and found an inner tube (picture one) and a bungie cord and hooked it up to the fence in our back. I then got some sidewalk chalk and marked it so that you got five points for throwing it through from a certain distance, 10 points for farther back, and so on. I was pretty proud of myself and we played this for a little while, but, still it wasn’t enough.

Ethan went back into the garage and came out with a sled (picture 2). He then tweaked the game by saying that the person throwing the ball has to first hit the other person holding the sled (with the ball) and then they can throw it through the tube.

Fine. But it doesn’t stop there. He went back into the garage one more time and came back with a tennis racket (picture 3). Now there’s a person in front of the tube trying to hit the ball away while the other person is trying to throw it through.

Can you make catch more exciting? Indeed, you can.