Every time I look at the NFL playoff picture or listen to any of those talking heads on TV (not you, Stacy Dales. Love ya mean it!), I feel like I’m getting a lump of coal in my Christmas stocking.
Everyone with a microphone and great hair can’t wait for the New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks to meet in the Super Bowl. What’s the over-under on overdone praise?
Can commentators announce every Marshawn Lynch run by bellowing “MAR-SHAWN LYNCH!!!!!”? (For 2 yards. But holy hash marks, the guy is just a professional. Never mind that he treats Skittles better than he does reporters.)
We’ll hear about the genius of Bill Belichick and competitive fire of pretty boy quarterback Tom Brady. Don’t know how much the players love to play for Pete Carroll? You’ll learn all about it.
Don’t even ask about the hype machine that is Richard Sherman.
In fact, I couldn’t have even predicted that I’d open this blog with “I’m no Nostradamus.” I did, once, predict the exact final score of a Carolina Panthers-Minnesota Vikings game in a preview for the News & Record in Greensboro (N.C.)
Do you believe me?
I also predict the Denver Broncos will beat the Seattle Seahawks in the Super Bowl, 27-23. They’ll take a comfortable lead, then make me sweat it out until the very end. I probably won’t be able to fully enjoy my salmon until late at night.
Me, age 8, that is. A Seattle Seahawks fan. Today, we’re going to talk about the Super Bowl. You might have heard that my current favorite team, my home-state Denver Broncos, will face Seattle in the Super Bowl in less than a week.
I chose Seattle as my favorite team at age 6.
At age 15, when my family moved to North Carolina, I converted to a Broncos fan.
It didn’t take long. Jen and all her friends made quick work of them all.
Which is OK – I don’t need the distraction. The kids have a great lineup of Go Ask Daddy questions all ready to roll, covering everything from women’s football to trippy Beatles songs. They keep me busy. And on my toes.
The questions can be tough, like No. 5. I’ll probably have nightmares about dinosaurs tonight because of it.
Thanks, Grace.
1. Do you sink faster in quick sand if you move around?
Like it has for the talents of former SNL star Kristen Wiig, TV has greatly exaggerated the affects of quicksand.
Quicksand – a not-so-lethal combination of clay, fine sand and salt water – can’t pull you under completely. At higher stresses, it liquifies, causing any trapped body to sink. But you’re likely to sink only to your waist.
That doesn’t make for great drama. If you move around, you’ll sink faster. You should, however, wiggle your legs to make space between you and the quicksand for water to move into. This will loosen the sand, and you’ll be able to eventually climb out – with or without a vine tossed at the last moment.
If Kristen Wiig’s doing the Penelope gig on Saturday Night Live while I’m slowly descending into quicksand? I’ll take my chances with the sand.
2. Do they have girls’ football?
Good gravy – I just pictured you and your sisters in helmets and pads. The damage you could do … mainly to each other.
My friend Sara English played semi-pro football for the Carolina Cougars, and showed off her bruises to the sports desk at the newspaper where we used to work. The Independent Women’s Football League has teams in the U.S. and Canada, including two in the Carolinas – the Phoenix and the Queens.
The league has some cool helmets and really skilled players, not to mention sweet nicknames like the Nightmare, Wreckers, and Illusion.
A former client of mine, Katie Zellner, used to talk Packers football with me, and knows football. She also played for the Green Bay Chill in the LFL – the Lingerie Football League. Yeah, the play in lingerie. But the rivalries are real, and so are the hits.
I can argue for and against any uniform, in any sport and any league, and these are no exception, as a man and a dad. But football is football. Decide for yourself.
3. What’s the major difference in rules for softball and baseball?
Softball began your pop’s illustrious and laughable athletics career. Yep. It all started with a team called the Greeley Grapes. We sported red polyester hats, curiously, and I wore jeans and a big Seattle Seahawks belt buckle during games. The 70s rocked.
My favorite softball player is Texas A&M’s Jenna Stark; my favorite baseball player is Jordan Pacheco. In case you were wondering.
The three main differences are these:
Softball is played with a ball 12 inches in circumference; a baseball is 9 inches
Pitchers throw underhand in softball, off a flat surface, 45 feet from home plate; they throw overhand in baseball, off a raised mound, 60 feet, 6 inches from home plate
Base runners in softball must wait until the pitcher releases the ball to leave a base; in baseball, you can take off at any time
Both sports involve a lot of dirt, a good bit of spitting, but I believe baseball players scratch more than softball players. I have no scientific data to back this up.
4. What’s that Beatles song about drugs?
Song? How about six?
“A Day in the Life,” “Doctor Robert,” “Happiness is a Warm Gun,” “I’m Only Sleeping,” and “Tomorrow Never Knows” have all been suspected of drug-related origins. None of those songs appear on my fans’ Favorite Beatles Songs lists, honestly.
The most famous drug-suspicious Beatles song has to be “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds,” which is supposed to refer (see what I kind of did there?) to the hallucinogenic drug LSD. But, John Lennon said the song was about an inspirational lass named Lucy Vodden, who was gravely ill with lupus.
Most lyrics in question came from Lennon’s pen, it seems. But band mate Paul McCartney revealed in a book that his song “Got to Get You Into My Life,” thought to be a love song, wasn’t at all – unless you count Mary Jane as his love interest.
Here’s the trippy video to “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”:
5. Have you ever been really scared by a movie?
You had to bring it up, didn’t you?
My parents let me watch horrid things early in life, such as “Poltergeist” and “Faces of Death.” (The first can be blamed on me for sneaking in some HBO time, but the second? Those movies were rented. I’m scarred for life.)
But the movie that has given me the most nightmares is a bit embarrassing.
Every dad must return to the mortal status at some sad point in his life.
My dad’s moment came the day he gritted out an F-bomb while driving a nail – and taking his thumb along for the ride – when I was a kid. I’d never heard anyone outside the playground say what I thought was the worst bad word ever.
I’ve reverted to mortal status with each of my girls, although I can’t pinpoint the exact time or date.
They know now I can’t lift a house. They know now I can’t wrestle an alligator. They know now I don’t know everything about everything. I can’t slam dunk. Or hit a grand slam. Or punt the ball to the moon.
That’s me in that picture, getting ready to take on the short-track at Hickory Motor Speedway, back in the day.
Influence.
On who you are. What you think. What you like, hate, want, aspire to be. There’s so much of it. Advertising. Social media. News media. Family. Friends. Your work environment. Before all this, though, there’s TV.
Fiction. Non-fiction. Animation.
Before you join the workforce, or the social media realm, or even the dating world, these influences have prepackaged you to an extent. Like to partake in fisticuffs and treat your lady as a prize? Perhaps you watched a fair share of Popeye.
Just a dad ... 