(Note: The bulk of this text originally ran on Memorial Day.)

Electric football and Veterans Day wouldn’t seem to have much of a connection. But there is an electric football story that does connect electric football to this day of remembrance. It’s a story that was told to me in the mid-1990’s, and has stayed with me ever since.

Within our web page and our Facebook page we’ve recounted the joy of what it was like to grow up with electric football and the other amazing toys of the 60’s and 70’s. Without question, it was a great time to grow up. But other things were happening in the world. Major cultural changes were occurring, and also, there was a war going on.

Depending on your age, you knew someone who was drafted and went to Vietnam. A cousin, a neighbor, maybe even a brother. Invariably when they returned they were changed by the experience. Some of us are even old enough to have been following our own draft numbers. Not that we were old enough to go…but it was a rehearsal for an adult outcome we thought we might have to face. These conflicted feelings, like the war itself, were quickly swept aside when our soldiers finally came home from southeast Asia.

During the 1990’s I ran ads in just about every issue of Toy Shop and Toy Trader. From these ads I fielded a lot of phone calls. And there was one gentleman from the Midwest who called me and stopped me in my tracks.

His story was this – while in Vietnam, he and his platoon had an electric football league. The game stayed at a base, and they played it when they came back from their times out in the field. Electric football was their refuge from the unreality of their daily existence.

I had a number of conversations with this man, as he would call every so often just to talk electric football. I always thought his story would be perfect for our book. It exemplified just how powerful electric football could be – in the midst of war the game offered an escape.

Eventually I stopped hearing from him, and my electric football contact list became dated and obsolete during the extended period when it seemed there would never be an electric football book (at least not one written by us). But this is a story we will never forget, and one we want to highlight and honor on Veterans Day.

To all of those who serve and have served…our humble “thanks.”

Earl, Roddy & Michael