SIXTH COLUMN

"History is philosophy teaching by example." (Lord Bolingbroke)

New Email Address: 6thColumn@6thcolumnagainstjihad.com.

Monday, August 30, 2004

In the Eye

For the moment, we are between disasters and crises, in the eye, so to speak. How long it will last, whether minutes, hours, or even the whole day, no one knows. But, here is my opportunity to crow about a blessed event taking place throughout America.

FOOTBALL SEASON IS BACK!

With the last wiffle of NFL Europe and the Arena Football League championships disappearing into history came the awful drought. Basketbore was mercifully over as were the ice hostilities. The only thing left was basebore, which Bruce Williams so aptly named "a non-event." We still have basebore, and we have to endure the Who Cares League versus the So What League into October.

August is like the arrival of the first few drops of cooling, quenching rain coming after a long, hot, dry spell. Indeed, it is not the best football. It is the pre-season NFL. But at last, the world finally has a sport worth watching.

When I say football, I do not refer to that sissy non-American sport called soccer. Soccer has been renamed best by James Tarranto at the Wall Street Journal as "metric football." The fact that Europeans and Central and South American folk get off on metric football tells me they have a long leap yet to make.

Football means helmets, pads, smash-mouth, pointed ball WAR ON THE FIELD among 22 players hungry for victory and not long-haired dandies who look like they always need a bath. You bet, real football players need a bath after a game. They've gotten filthy, sweaty, bloody, drooled on, and some really bad stuff the former players confess in the broadcast booths.


As August winds down, so does the NFL pre-season, BUT the college football season kicks off. Then in September, the NFL teams play for real along with the college teams. After the NFL and college seasons, we have arena football, which I have come to enjoy throughly. Then we have, in late winter and early spring, the NFL Europe league providing opportunities for young players trying to beef up their skills and their employment in the NFL.


Where I live, it is probably good that football goes away during June, July, and most of August. So much needs doing around the house and outside where dryness is an asset.

Now it is back, and I think my team has a real shot at the playoffs this year. The one thing I cannot do is assuage my wife. She likes our college team and some of our local NFL team. Otherwise, it is overdose for her, and she feels like a football widow. I hope it's not a hard season on her this year.

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