There are no right or wrong ways to face Life. Everyone has to do what they believe they have to do at a particular moment and keep going. Eventually, you will figure out why what happened to you was part of your own myth unfolding.
Yeah, I'm a Boomer.
Born just before the halfway point in the 50s. Black and white console TV, three channels (pre-UHF). Tin foil on the rabbit ears. Soupy Sales, Captain Kangaroo... Cap guns and free-range childhoods. I even remember how our roads in Pennsylvania were "treated" after a snowfall - a guy with a shovel, standing in the bed of a town dump truck, tossing coal cinders over the tailgate. Try that today and the town's risk management office would have a coronary.
Boomer.
So much of what passes for insightful commentary is lost on me. It's not unusual for something to raise holy hell on social media...go viral, I hear it's called...and I have to consult with my "contemporary culture norms" experts - our daughters - to understand why voices are raised. Or, at least, why people are writing Twitter comments in all caps.
Take today, for instance. Al "Do you believe in Miracles" Michaels and Tony Dungy are under fire for, as near as I can figure, understating the call of a game winning field goal in the Jacksonville Jaguar-LA Charger football game. Okay, granted it was an unusual game. LA had led at one time 27-nil.
Sorry, World Cup hangover. Twenty-seven to nothing. Jacksonville's quarterback had thrown almost as many passes to LA players in the first half as to guys on his own team. Things looked grim. When I switched over to the Avalanche game (ultimately a much-needed 7-0 victory) I figured LA was going to play out the second half with intelligence and maturity and that would be that.
In fact, Jacksonville had other ideas. They clawed their way back, did what had to be done and, with a handful of seconds left on the clock, lined up for a field goal attempt. If it is good, Jacksonville wins. Miss, and LA advances, Jacksonville heads for the beach and the golf course. Nothing is guaranteed, they still have to kick the ball, etc. The teams line up, and...
Apparently, even as the snap to the holder was imminent, Al Michaels was in the middle of an anecdote. The play cut him off mid-sentence, and the broadcast crew watched silently as the ball sailed perilously close to one of the uprights. Their response to the successful field goal was to observe a penalty flag on the field. Then, the comment "They called it against the defense." They?
But, let me axe ya. If you are a football fan, a team has come back from twenty-seven points down and they are lining up to kick the winning field goal on the last play of the game, do you need anybody to tell you it's a critical, exciting, anxious moment? Do you really need to be told by some guy behind a microphone you are watching something special? Does his level of excitement make the moment, or are you able to decide for yourself?
If the answer is Al Michaels decides for you... You might not be a Boomer.
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