(No, I do not lie awake in bed during these long winter nights, replaying over and over the sight of Wes Welker, New England’s sure-handed sage of pass receiving, dropping the ball in the wide-open spaces of the New York Giants’ secondary. No, I do not lie awake as the football bounces on the turf, one, two, three times, and the Patriots’ drive, and the Patriots’ hopes for a Super Bowl victory, go proverbially gurgling down the proverbial drain. I do not lie awake chanting catch the ball, Wes, catch the ball, Wes. Oh. He drops the ball every time. Good night, Irene. Good night, Bill Buckner.)
Sirius satellite radio, the ad on the radio says. Is that opposed to humerous satellite radio?
Just wondering.
It’s a little thing I do to not think about Mitt Romney — and you have to admit, not thinking about Mitt Romney is a lot healthier than thinking about Mitt Romney. Probably adds years to your life. If that’s what you have in mind.
But speaking of Mitt, even though we were trying not to, BBC Radio reports that the former governor of Massachusetts (hmm; that state again; I am not lying awake, etc., catch the ball, Wes. Oh.) recently said Americans are the only people in the world who put their hands over their hearts during the playing of the national anthem.
That, of course, is utter nonsense. And many, many people from around the world responding to BBC about the hand/heart/national anthem thing said they, too, put their hands over their hearts during the playing of their national anthems.
According to the Mitt (maybe if Bill Buckner’s mitt had been as big as the Mitt’s imagination, he would have scooped up that ground ball in the 1986 World Series — stop obsessing, Beau), the hand/heart/national anthem thing started with FDR during World War II.
But according to an American history professor whom BBC interviewed (whose name I carefully wrote down, then carefully obliterated by knocking over my cup of coffee and swamping the piece of paper, my computer mouse, and my tobacco with coffee meant to wake me up from dreams of Wes Welker) … anyway, the American history professor whose name now resides in my trash can pooh-poohed the notion that FDR had ever urged Americans to put their hands over their hearts during the national anthem.
(That would be the national anthem whose melody Francis Scott Key reportedly stole [borrowed?] from an English drinking song. You have to admit, it’s exciting, or something, to have a national anthem taken from an English drinking song. I think it helps explain the whole binge-drinking thing, but then, I keep having these weird dreams. And besides, why couldn’t Scott Key have swiped the melody from an old Irish drinking song? They’re much more heartfelt.)
Meanwhile, not thinking about Mitt, public radio’s "Marketplace" reports that Iran has banned dolls based on characters from "The Simpsons." No, really.
Now, they’ve gone too far. I mean, the whole nuclear thing was dicey enough, but "The Simpsons"? Those Iranians are striking at the heart of high American culture (hmm — maybe that was the point).
But, of course, the Mitt comes marching back to center stage. He celebrated his smashing victory in Florida last week by announcing he didn’t give a damn about the poor.
(Well, OK — Romney said he wasn’t "concerned" about the poor, not that he didn’t give a damn. But his attitude, as it has been all through his campaign, was "Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn." Even so, we shouldn’t put feet in Romney’s mouth; he does a quite fine job of that all by himself.)
(No, I do not lie awake in bed during these long winter nights, replaying over and over the sight of Wes Welker, New England’s sure-handed sage of pass receiving, dropping the ball in the wide-open spaces of the New York Giants’ secondary.)
Good night, Irene. Good night, Bill Buckner.
Good night, Mitt.
