Catapult

It’s the last day of the NFL regular season, and I’m ecstatic because it means we’re into January.  Yes, it would’ve been nice had the Bears made the playoffs, but I can still pass the time just fine rooting against the Packers and Patriots while pulling for the Cardinals (a South Side team, if twice removed).  Before you know it, the Super Bowl will take up the first week of February.  The game’s going to be played in Santa Clara at Levi’s Stadium, home of the 49ers and, according to one website, “the greenest and most technologically advanced professional football stadium in the United States.”  That must mean no trough urinals.

Two weeks after the annual orgy of food and commercials pitchers and catchers report.  Of course, it used to be I didn’t need football to get through the winter.  I had Clare and softball.  I’d drive her to her Sunday practices, which ran from September through mid-March, and stay to watch.  She had this coach who was the second coming of Busby Berkeley the way he choreographed drills.  It was a thing of beauty to behold, enough to get me through another week of snow and cold…until the snow and cold of the high school season started in late March.  But those days are gone, and now it’s the NFL that bridges winter to spring for me.  So be it.