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!
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!
ReplyDeleteI 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.
ReplyDelete