Throw Me The Idol
My boyhood hero - or one of my heroes in a boyhood full of them - was Ron Jaworski, the starting quarterback for the Philadelphia Eagles. For a ten year old kid from the north of England living in rural Pennsylvania, it’s a pretty strange idol, but if you had seen him take the Birds to the Superbowl against the Oakland Raiders, under the exact same circumstances, you would have felt the same.
Our paths crossed a few times. One of our neighbours designed Veterans Stadium, where the Eagles played. Coach Dick Vermeil’s wife played on the tennis courts by the pool where we went swimming and when I was in hospital having physiotherapy, my nurse was the same one who in the days before had worked on Bill Bergey’s knee when he had it ripped from under him in a headline-hitting injury.
This gave me enough evidence to suggest that my life and that of the man they called ”The Polish Rifle” were somehow interconnected, because that’s how idolation works in the pre-adolescent mind. But of course, we never met and I left the States and became a fan of other a hundred other things in successions that slowed as I got older.
More important than that was this morning when I did something not cool on the way to work. A driver stopped at a crossing to let me pass and as I stepped into the road I gave him a wave and a thumbs up. A thumbs up is fine, but when you do it, make sure you actually put your thumb up. That’s a pretty essential element. It’s how it got its name. I forgot to put my thumb up. Well, I say forgot, but it’s possible the finger part of my brain just didn’t respond. Or it did and thought “a thumb’s not a finger, haha”. Either way, the thumb stayed down.
This wouldn’t normally be a huge disaster in the nadir (or perhaps zenith?) of my working week, but what I actually gave him was the black power salute. I am white. I carry a laptop bag and wear a cord jacket. By all outward appearances this is not the usual dispatcher of a black power salute. Note to me: wet Wednesday mornings in London are not the 1968 Olympics.
Yesterday New Reader Martin pointed out that the good folks at MSN had selected this here webstie was selected as one of the Top 5 “Must Read” blogs. Yeah, little old this.
I wanted to say that this is a very cool thing, even at the risk of not being one myself. I’ve no idea if it is a “must read”. I mean, I “must read” it, because if I didn’t there would be loads of mistakes, but really, you don’t have to. I know that’s what it says, but it’s fine with me if you don’t.
“Can read” maybe. Or just “read”, if you want to. But it’s great to be mentioned alongside other blogs, notably “My Boyfriend Is A Twat“, which is hilarious. My boyfriend is not a twat. I wouldn’t know about that anyway, because I don’t have one.
So thanks New Reader Martin and welcome if you are also new (nav bar over there, we got some archives and things, stuff about what this is) and welcome back if you’re not and thanks for sticking around.
August 9th, 2006 at 11:08 am
hi cliff - thanks for the mention and for having popped around chez moi. although these lists are often scorned upon by other bloggers, i find that they are a good way of finding other good blogs. like this one.
congratulations!
August 9th, 2006 at 1:43 pm
I wouldn’t call this a ‘must read’ because it’s not something I think about- the compulsion to read it is involuntary because if I miss a word I’ll die.
Or something.