The Mystery of the Super Bowl
Wed., February 08, 2006
Last Sunday, along with about 100 million Americans, I watched the Super Bowl. At least I watched parts of it, in-between doing email on my BlackBerry (Which, by the way, is still working despite all the rumors. Goes to show that you can't believe everything you hear.)
For the non-Americans reading this blog, the Super Bowl is the championship game for the National Football League. That is American football, not to be confused with the football that is played by the rest of the world that actually uses the foot rather than the hand. In American football the quarterback uses his hand to throw the ball to the receiver who catches it with his hands, then throws it to the ground, and dances when he scores. The winner of the Super Bowl is crowned the "world champion" of football. Only Americans would make up a game that no one else in the world plays and call the winner "world" champions. We are a geographically and globally challenged people. Of course the whole world should speak English, without an accent, meaning they should sound like a Fox News anchor. We Americans don't have accents, the rest of the world does, especially Michael Swain.
Watching "Super Bowl XL" (XL as in the number 40, not extra large) brought back a flood of Super Bowl memories, especially memories of Super Bowl VI in 1972 when the evil Cowboys got lucky and beat the immortal Dolphins outdoors in the old Tulane Stadium. I don't know how Dad got the tickets, but he did and we went. And we froze. It was 38 degrees and raining. But I didn't care, I was 13 and I was at the Super Bowl, with Dad and my big brother. Every boy in America grows up dreaming about playing in a Super Bowl. I was sure in just a few years I would be back as a player. That didn't quite happen, but last Sunday I was watching Super Bowl XL.
The half-time show was quite entertaining. At first I thought it was a commercial for Saturday Night Live. Was that Will Farrell spoofing Mick Jagger? No, it really was Mick. What was he thinking? Teenagers, don't ever let your 60-something grandparents act like that in public.
|