According to Oxford Languages, the online dictionary used by Google, an urban legend is “a humorous or horrific story or piece of information circulated as though true, especially one purporting to involve someone vaguely related or known to the teller.”

You know how this goes. It’s always someone’s mother’s cousin’s college roommate who saw Bloody Mary in the mirror, or played Polybius, or heard scratching sounds on the roof of her car while driving and pulled over at a gas station to discover an escaped serial killer trying to claw his way through the roof.

The incident that created the urban legend never seems to have happened to the person telling the story and the person to whom it supposedly did happen isn’t close enough to the teller to verify their account. As such, the origins of most urban legends are shrouded in mystery.

You can therefore imagine my family’s surprise when we recently heard about an urban legend and immediately recognized its source.

Back in December, Dad was watching the news on one of the TV channels out of Boston. A reporter was live at Boston Common, talking about the amount of snow that had fallen and describing its texture and consistency.

Even though it was good packing snow, the reporter warned people to refrain from building snowmen on the Common. A police officer had previously explained to the reporter that because the Common is a public space that everyone has access to, building snowmen is not allowed.

The anchor in the newsroom commented that it was too bad that people couldn’t build a snowman on the Common and leave it for others to enjoy.

He then mentioned a story he had heard about some people trying to play football in the South Garden at the Prudential Center and being told they couldn’t for the same reason – because it’s a public space.

“That’s probably an urban legend, though. I can’t imagine anyone trying to do that,” the anchor laughed before continuing on with the news.

I can authoritatively state that someone did try to do this, and that that someone was my family.

As is the case with urban legends, the original incident has been blown somewhat out of proportion. This wasn’t a bunch of adults playing a full-on game of tackle football and knocking over innocent bystanders and destroying public property.

This was three-year-old Youngest Brother and one-year-old Younger Sister.

The South Garden had just officially opened, and there were only a handful of people there. Mom and Dad had a small Nerf football – about a third of the size of a regulation football – and they were gently tossing it to Youngest Brother and Younger Sister. Youngest Brother was standing, and Younger Sister was in the stroller.

It wasn’t long before a security guard approached them and apologetically informed them that someone had complained about them playing football and that they would have to stop. “I’m sorry to have to tell you that you can’t have fun with your kids,” he said.

Of course, Mom and Dad complied and found other, less offensive ways to keep my youngest siblings entertained. I don’t think anyone really thought about the incident again until Dad heard it mentioned on the news. Youngest Brother remembers it happening; Younger Sister does not.

I can imagine that security guard telling the story to his coworkers, how right after the South Garden opened, he had to tell a nice family that they couldn’t throw a little Nerf football to their toddlers because someone complained.

And I can see that story growing and changing with each retelling as people further removed from the original incident shared it with other people, eventually morphing into the urban legend about people trying to play football in the South Garden at the Prudential Center.

It’s possible that other people have since tried to play football in more disruptive ways, but because this happened right after the South Garden’s official opening, I believe this is most likely the original incident from which the urban legend stems.

This whole experience certainly gives me a different perspective on other urban legends. Maybe the Bloody Mary story grew out of someone turning off the lights in the bathroom while their sibling was brushing their teeth and sneaking up behind them and scaring them in the mirror.

The legend of Polybius may have been born out of a news story about a person collapsing due to a medical issue after playing an arcade game for hours. And maybe that serial killer trying to scratch his way through the car roof was originally a racoon who fell out of a tree and was scrabbling to keep its grip on the roof so it wouldn’t be thrown off into the road.

As I’ve continued to reflect, I’ve realized that my family has had so many misadventures that we’re probably the basis for more than one urban legend. Perhaps someday I’ll tell you about the time we accidentally dropped a stuffed toy platypus into a display case containing a full-size taxidermy black bear at a rest area in Pennsylvania.

Tete-a-tete is published monthly. Teresa Santoski can be reached at tsantoski@gmail.com or via www.teresasantoski.com.

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