February 1, 2004

Da Game.

Filed under: Uncategorized — Jim @ 2:19 pm

I am, at very best, a very casual football fan. In fact, I wonder if it is even fair to identify myself as any kind of football fan, casual or otherwise. I assume that a basic minimum requisite for “fanhood,” is making some effort to regularly watch football games. In that regard, I fail miserably. Given a choice between watching the History Channel or a football game, the History Channel wins every time.

If pressed as to which is my favorite team, I would say the “Giants,” even though I’m not very happy that the team permits itself to be called the “New York Giants,” (don’t give me that “Football Giants” baloney), even though the team practices and plays all its games in New Jersey. That preference is really a carryover from my boyhood, when I really was a Giants fan, and the Jets didn’t yet exist.

However, my lack of much interest in football notwithstanding, I, like zillions of others, will be watching the Super Bowl later today. The reason I will be watching it, as opposed to the History Channel, is that the Legion Post does a Super Bowl Party each year, and it is something I like to support. Besides, I usually spend Sundays at the Post with the Usual Suspects anyway, so what the hell.

A couple brothers who are post members put the party together. For a single price, the bar is open and the food (heavily Italian, with the mandatory kielbasa) is catered. Only men turn out for this event (the women Usual Suspects go as a pack to a movie and dinner), so the fare is “manly” rather than pretty. The salad hardly ever goes. The room is noisy, smoky (cigar smoking is allowed), and raucous as hell. There are pools for each quarter and a pool for the final score. They are the kinds of pools I like because winning is a matter of blind luck.

The other day, my daughter asked me which teams were playing this year, and I responded, “The Patriots – I don’t remember if they are called the ‘New England Patriots,’ or the ‘Boston Patriots’ – and a team from South Carolina named after a large cat.” So much for my “fanhood.”

It should be a fun day anyway.

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