The Super Bowl -- Flash Nonfiction

image from denverpost.com

It's today. Will it be Peyton's last Super Bowl? Will it be mine?

When I was a kid, before there were Super Bowls, we didn't have professional football in Oklahoma, but we had college football. My big cousins (two high school boys whom I never saw play football, because they lived in different towns from us -- and the stories they would tell . . .) would take the train from Oklahoma City to Norman with their fathers for OU games. They were the only people I knew who rode the train anywhere and the games were the number one topic on the TV news and in the newspaper. (Not unlike Denver's Bronco football for the past two weeks.)

I didn't know who the President of Oklahoma University was, but I knew who Bud Wilkinson was. After they graduated high school, one cousin went off to OU and the other went off to the Marines, maintaining their hero status, at least as far as I was concerned. I loved football because they did.

Right next to Christmas and Thanksgiving, our fall holidays included the Oklahoma-Texas game held toward the end of the season -- football season, of course. (Again, not unlike San Francisco right now, Oklahoma football fans and Texas football fans would descend on Dallas whether they had tickets to The Game or not.)

My brother started playing football in junior high and he was pretty good. My parents didn't go to the games because Mother was agoraphobic, but I did. Matt played tackle. His mantra was "get the quarterback."

Mother and Daddy played basketball during their high school days. During family get-togethers, on Daddy's side, we, from grandparents down, played pick-up basketball. As you might guess, Matt had a tendency to play tackle basketball, but nobody got hurt.

Probably because Matt played defense, that was the part of the game I was interested in.

When I was a case worker for the welfare department, one of my clients had twin boys who played defense for their high school. I only went to one game that year, but I got to see them in action, and they were good. I didn't know she couldn't afford to go to the games until I did a home-visit very soon after that game.

The relationship between a caseworker and client is often adversarial. The worker is tasked with asking questions that would normally be none of her business. And the client, who would normally not be in the worker's social circle, much less a close enough friend to confide in, justifiably feels disrespected. Plus, her boys were attending a school in whose district they did not reside.

But a compliment from me about her boys' football excellence and the fact that I obviously did not care under what circumstances they were playing for that high school helped make our relationship friendly enough to exchange recipes and call greetings to each other when we were out and about.

I liked football.

I liked going fast in cars, but . . . .

I went to a drag race once. Some of the races that day involved stock cars. Cars just as they come off the assembly line. Some were modified which means exactly what it sounds like. And some involved an automobile called a rail.

image from modelcarsmag.com

Rails were built for only one purpose to go as fast as possible as quickly as possible. They had to be push-started. On the track where I was, a push car started the dragster on a strip running along side the race track. The rail would go along that strip at a slow speed, make a U-turn onto the track, wait for the green light and go like hell.

That day the driver's wife was push starting the rail and something went wrong. The rail started and accelerated and kept accelerating. There was no way it could make the turn. His wife and all of us watched as he tore through the fence, through the trees, and into the sandy riverbed. He died.

In the only motorcycle race I've ever been to, a rider wiped out and died.

As I was growing up I watched football on TV with Daddy. Couldn't watch boxing with him even before Ali's battering by Joe Frazier in the Thriller in Manilla. Too violent. And baseball was too slow to hold my interest.

But football was something we could watch together. Now, he has mild dementia and doesn't enjoy watching by himself but he enjoys it when we watch together.

I encouraged my son to play soccer instead of football, because I didn't want to see him play.

I go to rodeos, but I leave when the bull riding starts.

"Mom, you don't watch boxing because it's too violent. How can you watch football?" my conscience/daughter is want to say.

How, indeed? And now with the onslaught of information about the long-term brain damage caused by the game -- how, indeed?

Peyton Manning is Denver's quarterback for today's game. A man who had two neck surgeries prior to coming to Denver. A man who sat out two games this season due to a torn plantar fascia. He's back now, but the speculation is that he will retire after today's game.

My heart hurts when I think of Peyton Manning playing in today's Super Bowl. I've said it will be the last football game I watch. But I don't know if I can watch.

I hope Manning does well and Denver wins. And he retires. Unharmed.