Superbowl Sunday

You won't find too many posts about sports on this blog (unless it's about March Madness), but since it is Super Bowl Sunday, I do have a few thoughts on this big day.

I wasn't terribly aware of any professional sports as a young girl. I was a Dallas Cowboys fan by default because I grew up in El Paso, Texas and my Uncle Roger was a BIG fan. I spent a lot of time at my cousins' house during the days of Coach Tom Landry and Roger Staubach and when the Cowboys were America's Team. I remember seeing Uncle Rog standing in front of the TV cheering the Cowboys on when they made good plays and hollering at them when they goofed up. It was quite a show!

Fast forward to the fall of 1983 - I had just married the love of my life and was ready to settle into "Happily Ever After." Unfortunately for me, it was now football season and I lost my husband. Barely weeks into my marriage, I became a football widow. Ron was/is a lifelong Cincinnati Bengals fan - don't laugh - they have had a few good seasons in the past. Anyway, it seemed as though our lives revolved around football. He watched college games all day on Saturday, NFL games all day on Sunday and Monday night football. In our first year of marriage, we moved from Indiana to Texas. Because one of my cousins was the drum major of her high school marching band (Yay, Lisa!), we started attending high school football games on Friday nights. There was no way to escape it.

You know the saying "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em"? Well, I made a conscious decision to learn about football so that I would have something to talk about with my husband. Somewhere along the way, I learned to love it. I learned about the game which was pretty easy to follow - touchdown = 6 points; point after = 1 point; field goal = 3 points; safety = 2 points; 4 downs to advance 10 yards...pretty easy stuff so I understood and started to enjoy it. Even though I considered myself a Bengals fan by marriage, I developed my own opinions about my favorite teams and players and teams that I didn't like. For example, I LOVED the Chicago Bears during the time of Coach Mike Ditka, Jim McMahon, Walter Payton and William "The Refrigerator" Perry. I have been anti-Pittsburgh Steelers forever. I have to admit I rooted against the 49ers whenever they played (and almost always beat) Ron's beloved Bengals.

Fast forward again to today. Living in the Bay Area gives us a great opportunity to get caught up in a variety of professional sports. Since we are not native Californians, we enjoy the successes of all the area teams. We didn't grow up with a loyalty to either the 49ers or the Raiders or the Giants or the A's. I apologize to die-hard 49ers fans, but I think I might have been as excited if the Raiders had made it to the Super Bowl. Well, maybe not. I did buy a 49ers t-shirt when we were in San Francisco the other day, but I think it would be disingenuous of me to claim to have been a 49ers fan or a Giants fan all this time due to their recent successes. I will be cheering for the NINERS today.  I think the whole idea of the "Harbaugh Bowl" is going to make this a very interesting game to watch. Can't wait to see the commercials and the halftime show as well.

Well, time to get started preparing our Super Bowl feast. On the menu today - Burgers and Dogs on the grill, homemade potato salad and pineapple slaw, baked beans and chili con queso. All notions of healthy eating are discarded today - tomorrow is another day. Carpe diem!

Oh yeah, and "Go NINERS!"