Grew up in the Bob Devaney years in Lincoln, Nebraska, viewing that sociological phenomenon of long-term mass hysteria through a kids' eyes. One of the first years that the Cornhuskers made it to a bowl game our family went to a big party at a house out in the country where Dad's friend raised champion black labs. I was completely amazed that people could have more than one TV. I think a bunch of the engineer dads brought theirs along to hook up so all the simultaneous bowl games could be watched side-by-side in a dark room (to improve the picture quality). The whole memory is in soft focus black & white, even the table of snacks. Cold, snowy, gray New Year's sky, heaps of black overshoes amid melting slush, gravel roads, snowy fields, a farmhouse full of strangers, people in some stadium waving a sign that read, "Hail Mary Full of Grace. Notre Dame in Second Place." I asked Dad what that meant, and he said he would have to explain it on the way home. Terrified of dogs at the start of the day, but by the end madly in love with a very gentle and tolerant black lab.
That is how Catholicism became confused in some lobe of my brain with football. It was at about the same age that Congregationalism became linked with war, due to my Sunday School teachers having us sing "Onward Christian Soldiers" and the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" every week.
No comments:
Post a Comment