Because I can’t wag my tail.
For a full hour after a dreary Meet the Press interview with Basset-Faced Fred Thompson (not that there’s anything wrong with Bassets) and a superb-from minute-one This Week with George Stephanopoulus, I cleared brush and old fallen branches from the back part of my back yard, formerly knogn* as the Vinegar Hill Nature Conservancy. It was warm (WARM!) and sunny (SUNNY!) and after simply sitting and comtemplating life for four minutes, actually wanted to work some more. (I have a motto: I never spend more than an hour at physical labor unless Martha Stewart tells me it would mean a LOT to her.) My real workout came during the second half of the Chicago Bears/Detroit Lions football game.
I had missed most of the first half. Arriving late in the first quarter, I decided I could make more productive use of my time than by watching the Bears lose another game. So I went out at the perfect time of day to find and photograph a Vinegar Hill Neighborhood Association “Point of Pride” for the newsletter I’ve produced and edited for most of the association’s 12 years. I anticipated at least 30 minutes for this; I was back in 15, thanks to a fantastic home at — ask me for a free PDF of the November issue late this week and you’ll know.
By the time I glanced at the game on returning, Chicago was making a comeback. The “workout” began when I decided I had too much to do; I was NOT going to submit to the commercials. I may sit still for overkill of program reminding remind reminders and “it’s not yet too late to pledge your support” noise from WUIS, but watching the same commercials probably 20 times for the second half was more than I had the stomach for.
Back in my halcyon yoot (a piece of me comes from Brooklyn) was I watched football with mon father, it seemed 15 minutes of every hour was commercials. Today it seems half the hour is spent in that mode. When it starts to seem like 45 minutes of every hour, I’m going to watch nothing but war history and soft porn, just like most unmarried heteros of male persuasion. Today I turned the TV volume just enough to hear the change in speech rythm reaching my back office and began catching up with some neglected aviation history chores. As soon as the screen faded, I was out of my “Big Easy” chair like a shot and on task down the hall, returning only to the sweet music of the stadium crowd noise. During game half “B” I made the round trip probably 30 times, And I accomplished significant crazy action in the aviation history business. Thank you commercial TV!
As far as knowledge of the sport is concerned, my guess is that 98% of Americans who like the game know more about it than me. And STILL, in limited encounters, I like football, a game that is so much easier to watch and understand today, compared with 1965 when I graduated high school, it’s the difference between early computer games and today’s Microsoft Air Combat Flight Simulator. With the color scrimmage line and required yardage gain line plus almost instantaneous updates by spotters on the sidelines, etc. the game is fun when your heart belongs to it.
During the final minute, my REAL real workout took place as my heart was almost out of my chest and somewhere in the upper range of my throat. I have never seen such a finish! BASKETball doesn’t deliver the kind of second-to-second building tension to the final play that cinched it for the Bears.
What a fanTAStic football game!
Live long . . . . . . . and proper.
*(The “g” is silent, but so is the ubiquitous “w” that so many fancy-pants English majers seem to prefer.)
