by Dave Barry
So after I fulfilled my legal commitment to Little League, I avoided organized sports and got my exercise in the form of minor vandalism. But when I got to high school, I discovered that I had to go out for an organized sport so I could be called up to the auditorium stage during the annual athletic awards assembly to receive a varsity letter.
I cannot overemphasize the importance the kids in my high school attached to varsity letters. You could be a bozo of astonishing magnitude, but if you had a varsity letter, you were bound to succeed socially. Oh, the school administrators tried to make academic achievements seem important, too. They’d have academic assemblies, where they’d call all the studious kids up onto the stage. But the rest of the kids were unimpressed. They’d sit there, wearing their varsity sweaters, and hoot and snicker while some poor kid with a slide rule dangling from his belt got the Math Achievement Award. No, to make it in my high school you had to have a varsity letter, which meant you had to go out for a sport.
So in my sophomore year I went out for track, because track was the sport where you were least likely to have something thrown at you or have somebody run into you at high speed. The event I chose was the long jump, because all you had to do was run maybe fifty feet, after which you leaped into a soft pit. That was it. The long jump was far superior to the other events, in which you were required to run as much as a mile without stopping.
Anyway, I spent a happy spring, leaping into the pit and dreaming about going up on the stage to get my varsity letter. Then one day we all piled into buses and rode, laughing and gesturing at motorists, to a rival school for a track meet. This proved to be my downfall, because it turned out that at track meets they measured how far we long jumpers jumped, and only the three longest jumpers got points, which you needed to get your varsity letter. I was not one of the three longest jumpers.
I was not one of the ten longest jumpers. In fact, they could have pulled people out of the crowd, old people with arthritis, and they probably would have jumped farther than I did.
So that was the end of my involvement with organized sports. Fortunately, there was one other avenue to popularity in my high school, which was to drink several quarts of beer, go to a dance, and behave in such an extremely antisocial manner that you got thrown out by the assistant principal in full view of hundreds of admiring kids. So in the end I achieved social acceptance.
After I got out of high school, varsity letters seemed less important, and academic achievement started to seem more important. I mean, if you go to a cocktail party and subtly contrive to flash your varsity letter, people will think you are a jerk; whereas if you subtly contrive to flash your Phi Beta Kappa key, people will still think you are a jerk, but an educated jerk.
I often wonder what my former classmates do with their varsity letters, now that they’re out of high school. Maybe they wear them in the privacy of their homes. Why not? I still drink beer.
Football Deflated
Once again it is time for Americans of all races and religions to set aside their petty differences and spend half a day drinking beer and watching large persons injure each other’s knees. You guessed it: it’s Super Bowl time.
The Super Bowl is an American tradition, like heart disease. You need not know anything about football to enjoy it. I know very little about football, and I intend to write a whole column about it and get paid for it.
First, let’s talk about the word “football.” In most nations, when people say “football,” they mean “soccer,” which is a completely different game in which smallish persons whiz about on a field while the spectators beat each other up and eventually overthrow the government. I don’t know why the other nations call soccer “football,” but I suspect it has something to do with the metric system and I say the hell with it.
Modern American football was invented by college students. This should surprise nobody. There are no depths of idiocy to which college students will not sink. You’re always reading about them in the newspapers:
FORT STUCCO, TEXAS—Members of Beta Beta Zoot Fraternity here at Dunderson State Cultural Astronomical and Aeronautical Technical College are attempting to raise money for charity and get their names in the Guinness Book of World Records by setting a record for squatting around in the dirt drinking beer. They have been at it for eight days now, or possibly longer; a spokesbrother for the group said the Beta Betas spend a fair amount of time squatting in the dirt drinking beer anyway, so nobody knows for sure when they started doing it for charity. “We just thought, you know, we do something, you know, to make the world a better place and whatnot,” he said. “We’re gonna give the money to charity if we get any money and can find a charity or something to give the money to, if we get any money.” The spokesbrother said the rest of the student body has supported the effort by not driving cars over any of the brothers.
Anyway, the first modern intercollegiate American football game was played in 1869 between Rutgers and Princeton, two schools which are located in New Jersey, which should also surprise nobody. Rutgers won that game, and Princeton won the rematch a week later, but both schools were barred from postseason bowl competition because of recruiting violations.
Over the next hundred years or so football saw a great many major innovations and refinements that are too boring to even think about. Along the way professional football came into being so the largest and most violent college players would have a way to earn money other than simply demanding it from innocent civilians.
Today the National Football League has several dozen teams, which play games starting in about August and running right through to January. This presents many scheduling problems, because some of the teams are in warm places where everybody wants to play, and some are in cold places where nobody wants to play. Along about December you’ll have four or five teams showing up to play the Miami Dolphins and none showing up to play the Minnesota Vikings. So what happens is Dolphins end up fielding eleven men who get the stuffing knocked out of them by fifty-five opponents, while the Vikings win by scores of 12,324 to nothing. This is called the “home field advantage.”
At the end of the season, the teams with the fewest major injuries meet in the Super Bowl. By this time, of course, the players can barely walk, let alone run around and knock each other down, so the Super Bowl is usually pretty awful. To get people to watch, league officials try to turn it in to a Major Spectacle, along the lines of the fall of the Roman Empire. I remember one year, during the Nixon administration, when they had Air Force jet fighters fly over the stadium during the national anthem. I believe that was also the year that George Allen, one of the coaches, actually had his players run a play suggested by Nixon. In Nixon’s play, the quarterback gets the ball, then, when the other team’s linemen are about to jump on him, claims that he doesn’t have the ball, in fact has never had the ball, and implies that several of his teammates may have the ball, but because of National Security they can’t talk about it.
But back to the jets. The trouble with having jets fly over the stadium during the national anthem is that next year people expect something even more spectacular, like having the jets shoot down the Goodyear Blimp. I am not endorsing this idea, you understand. I’m just explaining football.
Gunning For Safety
You need a way to defend yourself, because there is a lot of violence these days. For example, recently a motorist drove into one of the bushes on my property in a violent manner. if I had had a gun, I could have gone out and defended the bush, but as it was I had to stand there helplessly, unarmed, while the motorist offered to replace it. I turned down the offer because I hate my bushes, which spend their days lunging out and scratching at me when I mow the lawn. I periodically go out with my chain saw and tame them down to the size of poinsettias, but that just angers them, and within days they are back, bigger and more hostile than before. To be honest, I wouldn’t be bothered in the least if motorists lobbed grenades at them as they drove by. But that is not the point. The point is tha
t we all need some way to defend ourselves.
The main reason violence is increasing, of course, is television. At one time, all the violence was on television and the streets were safe, because everybody was home watching it. You had shows like
“Starsky and Hutch,” where you didn’t dare go to the bathroom for fear you would miss some violence. Starsky and Hutch were police officers who believed that the only way to stop a crime—robbery, jaywalking, tax evasion—was to drive their car very fast through a populated area while shooting their guns out the window. They were very effective, largely because people refused to go out on the street for fear of being run over and shot.
But these days they’re not allowed to show violence on television except on Saturday-morning cartoon shows for children aged five and under. The rest of us are stuck with shows like “Donahue” and “Dallas,” in which people drone on endlessly about sex but never actually do anything on the screen. After watching these shows for a few hours, viewers tend to get bored and go out on the street and commit acts of violence.
Another reason violence is increasing is electronic arcade games. Arcade games cause violence because they encourage teenagers to shoot at alien beings who are trying to destroy the Earth. The teenagers are getting very good at this. A skilled teenager can defend the entire planet for a quarter; in contrast, the United States government spends roughly $100 billion just to defend the Western Europeans, all of whom hate us. The problem is that the government can get all the dollars it wants merely by threatening to throw taxpayers in jail, whereas the teenagers must get their quarters by badgering their parents. Eventually the parents get irritated, especially if they have been watching television, and this leads to violence.
How can you defend yourself? One excellent method is to get a vicious dog. You don’t want a large dog, such as a German shepherd, because large dogs are so accustomed to getting respect that they have completely forgotten how to attack. They rely entirely on deep growls and snarls, which are useless against an intruder wearing earplugs or a Sony Walkman. So what you want to get is a small, insecure dog, such as
a miniature French poodle, which knows how stupid it looks and consequently hates everybody. If you want it to be really vicious, you should give it a silly haircut and make it wear a fake-jewel collar and sit in your lap. After a few days of this, it will attack anything that moves, including you, but this is a small price to pay for peace of mind.
You can also defend yourself with guns. The U.S. Constitution says that the government cannot stop you from owning a gun. The courts have interpreted this to mean that the government can stop you from owning a gun, so you’d better check your local laws before you buy one. If you do get a gun, you should join your local Gun Fondlers Club and learn the Rules of Gun Safety, which are:
1. Never load your gun.
2. Never clean your gun.
3. Never even take your gun out of the box.
4. Never point your gun at anything or anybody except your vicious little dog if it really gets out of line.
If you don’t want to own a gun, you can take up karate, a form of martial arts in which people who have had years and years of training can, using only their hands and feet, make some of the worst movies in the history of the world. They can also break boards, which could be very useful if an intruder enters your home and tries to hide behind your spare lumber so the dog can’t get at him. I like the idea of learning to break boards with my bare hands. It’s a skill I might be able to use on my bushes.
Something Fishy Here
Fishing is an excellent way to relax and contemplate the beauty of nature and get in touch with your inner self and maim and kill fish. Many people would be much happier if they went fishing. Take Secretary of State Alexander Haig. He seems awfully tense. I think he should take four or eight years off, buy several hundred six-packs, and go fishing. Al would probably shoot the fish with a bazooka, but what the heck, as long as he doesn’t start a nuclear war or something.
It’s okay to kill fish. It’s not like hunting, where you kill friendly brown-eyed woodland creatures like Bambi and Thumper who talk in squeaky little voices. Fish are bad. They go to the bathroom in public waters, and they eat teenagers, as was demonstrated in the fine nature movies Jaws I and Jaws II. Besides, fish can’t feel anything. I know this because I took a fish apart once, in biology class. The idea was that I would find a little fish heart and a little fish stomach and a little fish nervous system, like the diagram in the biology textbook. I found none of these things. All I found was glop. Fish are nothing but little bags of glop swimming around with fish heads in front, so don’t waste your pity.
IMPORTANT NOTE: When I talk about fish, I am not talking about whales. Whales are mammals: they have feelings and can talk to each other, just like you and me. The only difference between whales and humans is that whales mate for life. Some evil foreign persons, such as the Japanese and the Russians, kill whales. The Japanese use them to make efficient automobiles, which they force Americans to buy so American auto workers will lose their jobs. The Russians don’t do anything with their whales. They just use whaling as an excuse to get away from Russia for a couple of months.
If you want to fish, you have to decide whether to catch freshwater fish or saltwater fish. The main saltwater fish are tuna, swordfish, catamaran, eel, oyster, snook, snipe, wahoo, giant clam, and serpent. To catch them, you have to go to the Bermuda Triangle in a small boat for several days. If you need more information on this subject, read The Old Man and the Sea, a book by Ernest Hemingway, a famous dead writer. In the book, the old man battles a huge fish for a long time, after which the fish tips the boat over and kills everybody except Ishmael. No, wait, that’s Moby-Dick. Anyway, if you catch a big fish, the government requires you to have your picture taken with the fish hanging next to you in case it was stolen. Then you can take it home and either stuff it and hang it on your wall or, if you have any taste at all, just throw it in the garbage.
The main freshwater fish are bass, bream, guppy, carp, frog, muskellunge, piccolo, and crappie. Some people claim there are also trout, but this Is a mythical fish, like the Loch Ness Monster. Nobody in recorded history has ever even seen a trout, let alone caught one. I went “trout fishing” once, with my friend Neil and his uncle Bruce. We’d wander around these streams, and every now and then Uncle Bruce would point to a shallow pool of water that any fool could see contained absolutely no fish. “That’s where the trout will be,” he’d say, and Neil and I would stand there and not catch fish for several hours while Uncle Bruce went back to the tent to drink. I believe his marriage was in trouble.
Some people still believe in trout. You’ll see them out by streams on the first day of trout season, standing shoulder to shoulder. The humorous thing is that they think the way to catch these mythical trout is to wave long strings with fuzzy hooks around in the air. I mean, they hardly ever even put them in the water, for heaven’s sake. If there were such a thing as a trout, the only way it would get caught is if it leaped out of the water an grabbed a hook as it flew by.
If you want to fish for fish that actually exist, you’ll need either bait or lures. The best bait is worms, which you can find almost anywhere worms are found. All you do is impale the worm on the hook, wait for the little worm screams to die down, and toss it in the water. The fish will come around and nibble on it until it’s gone, then they’ll give the hook a gentle tug to let you know it’s time to send another worm down.
You can also use artificial lures, which are brightly colored plastic or metal things with hooks on them that are scientifically designed so they appear to fish to be brightly colored plastic or metal things with hooks on them. Fish love lures. They gather together in little lure-appreciation groups, called “schools,” and howl with laughter as the lures go by. It’s their major form of entertainment, and they don’t want to lose it, so every now and then they draw lots and the loser has to bite the lure and get caught. This encourages the fishermen
to continue.
Tips From The Bottom
Serf Wanted
I think everybody should have a career. Careers give you money and a place to go during weekdays when there’s nothing good on television.
No doubt many of you young people out there would like to have careers, but can’t find good jobs to start your careers with. Believe me, things are much better now than they used to be. In the Middle Ages, for example, the only good jobs were king and nobleman, and there were very few openings. So most people had to settle for serf or barbarian. The help-wanted sections in the Middle Ages newspapers looked like this:
SERF WANTED—Must have experience sleeping with goats and whacking at soil with stick. Must have own stick. Goats provided.
BARBARIANS WANTED—Looting, some pilfering. Must get along well with other members of horde. Apply at tent of Howard the Unusually Large.
These jobs offered little opportunity to advance. If you were really good at serf, you might work yourself up to peasant, but that was about it. If you were really good at barbarian, after twenty years the head barbarian would give you a gold watch, then kill you and take it back.
Things are much better today. But you young folks still must be careful about how you prepare for your careers, because otherwise you may be misled. For example, you have probably seen those television ads claiming that if you join the armed forces, you’ll get all kinds of useful career skills. You know the ads I mean: they show people repairing tanks and jumping out of airplanes at six o’clock in the morning. Now I’m not saying these are not useful skills: I’m just saying that executives at major corporations, such as IBM, rarely repair tanks, and virtually never jump out of airplanes. Successful executives usually wait until their airplanes have landed.
