Dear Pittsburgh Steeler Fans, “We” are not going to the Super Bowl. The Pittsburgh Steelers are going to the Super Bowl. “We” are staying in Altoona where the only professional team in town works at Walmart.
What's all the brouhaha about a ball game, anyway? I don't get it. Don't people have anything better to do with their time than watch grown men beat each other up for money? Welcome to the Coliseum, Mr. Gladiator. Maybe the networks will hold a boxing match or an old-fashioned hangin’ at half-time during the Super Bowl for those of us that just can't get enough gore.
America, you are an oxymoron. Is this the same country that gave us the CDC, WHO, UNICEF, AMA, AOA, ADA and Feed the Children? The same country that stamped out cholera, small pox, measles and polio, and the same country that promotes flu shots and fights cholesterol on prime time TV? Is this the same America that insists on seatbelts, air bags, safety receptacles, and bike helmets?
Frankly, I believe we might as well eat a pound of bacon each day, drink and smoke as much as we like and spend our free time playing in traffic if we are going to promote legal retail violence with football.
Maybe this Super Bowl is the only thing this area /country has had to cheer about. Maybe I should be more understanding. I guess if I lived in a gray row house in an undereducated and depressed postindustrial town all my life that there is a good chance that prosaic spectator sports served with warm beer might excite me to a frothing frenzy as well. Maybe. IF I were a beer drinker.
I had a Super Bowl ring on my finger one night in Miami when we were fishing off Biscayne Bay, right after Hurricane Andrew. It looked like my class ring, only bigger. I was having drinks with Ted Hendricks and a few friends. Ted, and most of the other football players I have met (including some retired from Pittsburgh) are about as stimulating as fresh quarried slate. I don't know if they were like that before they had their brains beat out by playing the game, or if they played the game because they (and their parents) were intellectually impaired from birth. Yeah, I'm sure there are some exceptions, but I have yet to meet one.
When I was in high school we didn't have a football team. The school used to, but the principal's son broke his neck and died playing. There are a few traditions in this country that I believe we need to get beyond, and promotion of violent sports for enormous profit is one of them.
But when has anyone in this country ever willingly walked away
No comments:
Post a Comment