Some things in life are not meant to be shared by men and women. Hair curlers. The Three Stooges. Picking a prom dress.The Super Bowl.Oh, I know it's fashionable to make the Super Bowl a coed experience. It is also wrong. The annual over-hyped NFL championship game, which is played tonight, should be one of those times when a woman looks lovingly into her man's eyes, lets her voice drop to a sexy whisper, and says, "Go downstairs."
A few years back, a friend named Sonya told me about her father, who survived the Auschwitz death camp but lost everything else, including his young wife and 2-year-old son. He had come to America after the war, started a new life, a new family, worked into his old age as a sign maker in Detroit."He reads your column," Sonya said. "He'd like to meet you."I promised it would happen, then, of course, never followed up. Now and again, she would mention it, and I'd say, "Oh, sure, sure, let's make the time," but again, I fell short.
I'm taking New England. What about you? Hurry. Pick now. It's almost too late. What's the rush, you ask? There's still 12 days until the Super Bowl. Please! That's the rush. The 12 days are a trap, pure poison to any thinking fan. Already I can feel the Super Hype oozing out of radio speakers. Already, I can see the television talking heads turning "pro" into "con" and "con" into "pro."Already, I can see newspaper ink thickening in evenhandedness: "Why The Eagles Will Win" and "Why The Patriots Will Win."
I once worked at a football stadium. I sold programs. I was 14. Before the game, I lined up with the other vendors, including the guys who sold beer. They had to be older, of course, but they still trudged through the stands, like me, hoping for customers.At the end of the day, like me, they pocketed, in cash, a small percentage of what they brought in. And they went home, many via bus or subway.
Here's something I'd like to see on Thursday. George W. Bush, being sworn in for his second term as president, then shaking hands with a few dignitaries.And everyone goes home.
Mitch Albom writes about running an orphanage in impoverished Port-au-Prince, Haiti, his kids, their hardships, laughs and challenges, and the life lessons he’s learned there every day.
