Sure, I’ll root for the Bengals out of hometown loyalty whenever they hit the Superbowl—and sigh sadly when they choke—and display appropriate pleased surprise when I’m told that Miami of Ohio actually won a game, but after nine years in various marching bands, the merest glimpse of a gridiron tends to give me a damp wool stinking, sun glaring, out of tune-ish, heavy hatted, flashback headache.
Plus, it’s essentially boring—like a real battle,** it’s made mostly of Hurry Up and Wait. If I had my way, the clock would only stop for halftime*** and every single time out—team or referee—would cause an immediate electric shock to be administered to a favorite body part of the person who called it and the general manager of that team and the owner. We’d see some freakin’ hustle then . . .
But there are exceptions to my general apathy of the sport—and some analogies are too good to pass up.
So.
If you can see Number 14 as a writer, the players in yellow as all the I Don’t Wannas and I Don’t Have Times and Oh, God This is Complete $#&%s that make up Writer’s Block, and the players in white as the I Think I Cans, I’m Gonna Do it Anyways, and Just One #$%& Word at a Time of the writer’s interior support team . . .
. . . then I can admit that football has its uses after all.
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*American football, that is. Soccer, as most of the civilized world doesn’t call it, is fine by me. As is rugby, which I consider GBH soccer—or maybe land hockey. Tomato, tomahto.
**Which it isn’t. No, really.
***Which would be broadcast in full, commercial free. Musicians suffer for those shows, damn it.
Jane* wrote to the Governor of Delaware as part of her Academic Fair Project—fourth graders get states.
Along with a nice letter and an autographed photo of Jack A. Markell,** she received a lot of information.
Did you know that along with a State Drink (milk), a State Herb (Sweet Goldenrod***) a State Dessert (Peach Pie^), and a long list of other State Things, Delaware has a state macroinvertebrate?
Me neither. It honestly never occurred to me.
It’s the Stone Fly, and its appointment is supposed to represent Delaware’s clean water systems. Which is all well and good, I suppose. Ecology. Circle of Life. Makes sense.
But frankly, if I found the above in my water system, cleanliness isn’t the first thing that would come to mind. That would be, “Doesn’t Dow Chemical make something to get rid of these suckers?”^^
Delaware’s information department is ever so slightly defensive about this,as if they know they’ve gone just a bit too far.
Most of the blurbs under the pictures say things like, “Milk is Delaware’s State Drink because we have a lot of cows and milk is one of our greatest agricultural products, etc. and so forth.”
Under the Stone Fly, it says, “Appointing the Stone Fly as Delaware’s State Macroinvertebrate is perfectly acceptable, because . . . ”
But Jane and I aren’t judging Delaware at all.
We’re too busy trying to work stone flies into the Battle of Cooch’s Bridge . . .
I usually save stuff this cool for Saturdays, but I had to share.
Zachariah Scott is a genius.
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*Who is holding up very well, and thanks you very much for all for your concern—your supportive comments made her grin and give me a bonus hug (so I thank you, too). She’s already stopped one potential incident in its tracks by asking a Mean Girl to stop commenting on her hat and then telling the teacher when her request was ignored. The teacher promptly told the Mean Girl to keep her thoughts to herself. Jane was amazed.
Sure, I’ll root for the Bengals out of hometown loyalty whenever they hit the Superbowl—and sigh sadly when they choke—and display appropriate pleased surprise when I’m told that Miami of Ohio actually won a game, but after nine years in various marching bands, the merest glimpse of a gridiron tends to give me a damp wool stinking, sun glaring, out of tune-ish, heavy hatted, flashback headache.
Earful of Cider 