PittsburghThoughts

It's Super Bowl time in Pittsburgh. The Super Bowl is so big that we capitalize the first letter of each word.. With the exception of an adjective phrase being used to describe a football showdown, the humble "bowl" has never shown any compunction to be capitalized.

 

You can literally spend thousands on tickets and minutia, if you have a nagging kid or husband that must have an official Ben Roethlisberger Jersey, be prepared to transfer your wealth to an already wealthy family, aka, the Rooney family. The only ones who will notice or care are other like minded dolts with more money than sense.

 

Drinking is elevated to a lofty status during Super Bowl madness. What a psychotropic plant is to an Aztec High Priest, so to is beer, generally a bland, tasteless beer, to an adoring, boring, soon to be roaring drunk.

 

The drinking is anything but moderate, Tailgate parties, the modern day equivalent of  drunken Roman Bacchanalia, are as obsessive as the other ridiculous aspects of the game celebration: war painted faces, nudity in sub freezing weather, the occasional fight and innocent people with children feeling threatened and horrified. I once drove past Heinz Field after a game and saw a man passed out in the street, shortly thereafter, Art Rooney II. denied, in an interview, that people get drunk at Steeler games.

 

The cops look askance at the lawlessness, being the recipients of mucho overtime and the benefactors of the wealthy, they know what side their bread is buttered on. They cut their teeth on whacking good union men at the behest of employers in the mines and mills throughout history. In their heart of hearts the police are nothing more than misanthropes craving revelry, sex and violence.

  

In our heart of hearts maybe we are the same at least some of us. How many football fans have been beaten or intimidated for supporting their team? The Cleveland rivalry used to be replete with such tales. It's mob rule

for some and that's how they like it, lose your identity in the crowd and do the unthinkable.

 

But, I'll probably watch at least some of the game on TV. It's the Super Bowl after all.    Gene