Sunday, February 2, 2014

Super Bowl Sunday


    The mercury (poisonous stuff) was not doing a ground hog imitation.  It wasn’t high enough to cast a shadow, even if the sun was up.  I removed an arm from under the futon and punched the snooze button on the radio.
     “. . . Super Bowl 48. . . .” the voice said.  XLVIII?  Really?  Super Bowl I wasn’t that long ago.  It doesn’t seem that long ago.  The upstart, junior American Football League challenged the old guard National Football League.
      It was one of those moments where you remember where you were and what you were doing at the time.  My brother was hauling me back to Greeley to begin winter quarter at Colorado State College.  Actually, winter quarter had begun almost ten days earlier.
       In those olden days, each quarter began with registration.  Every student stood in line to get into the building (Gunter Hall was it?) to go around to various tables to draw a key-punched card that got you into the class you wanted / needed. 
      There were lots of problems with the system.  The “good” classes with the popular or “easy” teachers, especially for general-ed classes, filled early.  Those who registered later got stuck with undesirable teachers.  Not everybody got to be first.  It was especially unfair to freshmen and sophomores who were trying to take required classes in the humanities, social studies and science.  (There were no math requirements at that time.) 
     You had a time slot during the day when you could get into try to draw your classes, based on the first letter of your last name.  To enter you had to show your student ID card.  Students, being human, tried to game the system, by sneaking in early, or borrowing someone else’s ID.  So that the Allens and Andersons didn’t always get to go first and get into all the good classes, and the Younts and Zapruders didn’t always get the hind teat, the alphabetical groupings were rotated so everyone had a chance to register first, and everyone had to suffer the consequences of going last.
     No matter.  It seemed that every student spent an hour or two standing in line, outdoors, waiting to get into register.  That was okay in September and in many Marches.  January registration was usually unokay.
      That particular year, it was bitterly cold and I stood in line in the biting cold for an hour or two.  When I got in, got my classes and returned home, I didn’t feel too well.  The next morning, I felt even worse.  When I looked in the mirror, my face was all swollen up. 
     I had the mumps.   
     I tried to tough it out for a couple of day with my brother as nurse maid.  But he had classes to go to.  Besides, who wants to be around someone with the mumps, probably contagious?  So Mom and Dad made the trip to Greeley and took me home to recover and see that I had proper care—meaning I got something to eat.  So instead of going to the first five or six meetings for all my classes, I was stretched out in bed.  The doctor warned me to remain prone as much as possible to keep the mumps from “going down.” 
     In my baby book (baby book?  I was a sophomore in college!) Mom crossed out “Mumps?” and reentered it with a correct date.  I figure now that other jaw-swelling episode was a bad tooth.  How are you to know that when you’re just a kid?
      So it came to pass that my brother came from Greeley in his old green ’52 Cadillac and we headed back to Greeley on that Sunday 48 years ago.  KOA radio was then “sports-talk” radio, and they carried important stuff then, like Broncos games and Denver Bears baseball.  And of course, the first Super Bowl.  So we listened to the Green Bay Packers, led by Bart Star and Paul Hornung, put down the upstart AFL represented by the Kansas City Chiefs with Lenny Dawson and Jan Stenereud.  I think. 
     It was 48 years ago.  I might have developed a few phantom memories in that time.  Anyway, listening to the game was little more than a way to pass the time.  What was really on my mind was the catch-up game ahead of me.  I was in a hole I never really dug out of.  I worked harder that quarter and got the worst grades of my college career. 
     I don’t remember too many other super bowls.  The one I do remember was when Denver squared off against the boastful-b******* Dallas Cowboys.  That must have been in the 70’s.  We lived in the Page Street house and I was beginning my career as a DIYer home owner.  I was wiring a light in our front door closet, one of the first electrical projects I took on by myself.
      From the closet I was working on, I could see the tv set sitting in a corner of the living room on the old “cob burner” stove that used to sit upstairs at the farm where the bathroom displaced the stove.  We struggled mightily to make the two mortgage payments in those days, and furniture was catch-as-catch-can.
      So the Broncos scored early and I thought, “Oh boy!  This is going to be easy.”  If the Broncos scored again, I don’t remember it.  I went on to finish the light and do something else (brew some beer?) after the Cowboys piled up a 30 point lead.
       I remember better times with the Broncos.  Like one Christmas Eve, we headed for Christmas Eve Church service listening to Bob Reuben (I think, or was it Bob Martin?) and Larry Zimmer bringing the fair and balanced (ha ha) description of the battle with Terry Bradshaw and his Steelers.  I remember Dad excusing himself to go have a smoke right after the service ended.  He rushed out to the blue Buick and switched on the radio to see how Charley Johnson and Riley Odoms (that might have been the right players) were faring against the Steel Curtain.  He had lots of company.  And by George, the Broncos won!  Did they go on to the Super Bowl? I don’t remember. 
      I was taking a brief nap in an easy chair in front of the tv when Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunctioned.  “Dad, you missed seeing Janet Jackson’s boob,” my college-aged daughter said.  “Garn!  Why didn’t you wake me?”
      What teams played?  Do you remember?  That was ten years ago.
      Will the Denver streets and thoroughfares be treated to an orderly and lively traffic flow tomorrow February 3?  Or will it be snarling, horn-honking, hung-over commuters clogging the I70 and I25 corridors? 
      Que sera sera.  What’re really important are all the new ads we’ll get to see for the first time.  Not.  The media has already previewed a bunch of them.  I guess if you paid a few million to play an ad during the super bowl, you don’t mind getting a little more bang for your buck by getting your ad run free on the news.  But it seems a little like opening your Christmas presents early.
     Well, I have to go now.  We can’t ever host a Super Bowl party—our tv screen isn’t big enough.  I’ll go down to town, maybe sit in the same easy chair I napped in during the Janet Jackson display.  But I do have to take my share of snacks.
     My contribution will be guacamole, chips, and jalapeno poppers.  They are all within my culinary skills.  Mash some avocados, tomatoes, onions, a little garlic together.  Add some salt, a little mayonnaise, some lemon or lime juice to keep the avocado from turning colors. Carefully stick the avocado pit in the middle (supposedly helps preserve the avocado) and cover the thing with clear plastic wrap.
     Slice the jalapenos in half the long way.  Try your best to cut right through the stem so there’s a little handle on each of the peppers to it pick up with.  Take out the seeds and membranes.  Don’t rub your eyes during or after this exercise (a long time after).  Fill the cavity with cream cheese.  Wrap a slice of bacon around the whole thing.  Put them on a baking sheet and put into a 300 degree oven (hotter if you’re in a hurry) and check them in 30 minutes or so.  Just be sure the bacon is done.  If you place the cream cheese side down when you first place them on the baking sheet, you’ll need to roll them over in about 15 minutes.  The bacon will be done a little more consistently this way.




    Bon appetite!  May your Monday morning traffic be unsnarled.  Go Broncos!


2 comments:

  1. You mention mercury being poisonous stuff - and it is (!) but I'm amazed at how many of the old medical techniques used to use it - even to PRESCRIBING it (or more often, compounds of it) for certain diseases!

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  2. I remember that the first Super Bowl that the Denver Broncos were in was in 1978 - against the Dallas Cowboys. I don't remember much about the game except that I missed most of it and the Broncos lost. I had taken my kids to the farm for the weekend and had planned to drive home after the football game with them asleep in the car. 'Twas not to be. . . . . Both woke up Sunday morning with fevers (which later turned out to be caused by ear infections), so I packed them in the car and started driving towards Ogallala, Neb. where I was teaching at the time. I listened to about the first 5 minutes of the game and then lost reception. Got home in time to try to doctor the kids up a little and put them to bed. When I turned on the TV to watch what was left of the game it was almost over. Guess I didn't miss much.

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