Ice Bowl Referee

One of the most famous NFL championship games ever played took place in Green Bay, Wisconsin on New Year’s Eve 1967. The night before, when the Dallas Cowboys settled into their hotel rooms, a Dallas player named Lance Rentzel, called the Green Bay weather bureau and learned that it was 15 degrees with a 10 mph wind from the north.  When he awoke the next morning, he called the weather bureau again and learned that it was 15 degrees below zero with a 20 mph wind from the north.  Playing on Lambeau Field that day was a nightmare. Television commentator Frank Gifford made the first memorable comment of the day when he told the national television audience, “I just took a bite out of my coffee.”  That game made a legend out of Packer’s right guard, Jerry Kramer, because he threw a crushing block on Cowboy’s defensive tackle Jethro Pugh to enable the Packers’ quarterback, Bart Starr, to sneak into the end zone on the last play of the game.  I’ve read many accounts of that game, but learned something new about it just a few days ago. Immediately after the opening kickoff, one of the referees attempted to blow his whistle.  He found that, in order to remove it from his mouth, he was going to lose a piece of his lip.  For the rest of the game the officiating crew dare not blow their whistles.  Instead, they had to yell, “He’s down” or call the penalty verbally.

An Observation on Chick-fil-A

Chick-fil-A has managed to put itself in the news a great deal lately, although it doesn’t strike me as all that big a deal.  It’s not that Chick-fil-A has refused customers because of their sexual orientation.  The corporation’s CEO, S. Truett Cathy, has made contributions to a charity which disapproves of the “gay lifestyle.”  I have been to Chick-fil-A in my lifetime, although I’m not a regular.  I recently learned something rather interesting about that outfit: all Chick-fil-A restaurants are closed on Sundays.  Question: should restaurants close on Sundays? (Discuss amongst yourselves)  I also learned that S. Truett Cathy was born on March 14, 1921.  He is few months short of his 93^rd birthday.  I understand he recently turned over the mantle of CEO to his son.  To me, this raises two interesting questions:  1) how much longer will Chick-fil-A restaurants be closed on Sunday; and 2) how much longer will they engage in business practices which some people regard as “gay unfriendly?”

72 Years Ago on December 11th

Almost everyone has heard of December 7th, the anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, but relatively few recall the momentous event that took place just 4 days later. After Pearl Harbor, the United States was at war with Japan, but not Germany...until December 11th, 1941, when Adolph Hitler gave a speech, listing his grievances against the Roosevelt Administrations, and then declaring war against the United States. It is altogether possible (but by no means certain) that Congress would have voted to approve a request from FDR for a Declaration of War against Germany. Instead, Hitler made it easy for him...and the outcome of the Second World War became a foregone conclusion as a result of that incredible blunder.

A Stretcher Bearer Poem

I recently read Emily Mayhew’s book “Wounded” about the British Army’s medical corps during WWI.  I read a poem that a royal army chaplain attached to a field hospital wrote based on what he heard from stretcher bearers attached to his unit.  Reading it brought tears to my eyes.   After finishing it, I felt almost like I’d walked a couple of miles in foot-deep mud, smelling dead bodies, and cringing at the sound of incoming artillery rounds.  Can you imagine how badly a man would have to be injured to require a year’s worth of hospitalization and how hellish an environment he would be in for other men to regard that as an extraordinary bit of good luck?  It is my opinion that anyone who cannot make a rhyme does not qualify as a poet.  About the only bit of explanation this needs is that M.O. stands for medical officer. 

“Easy does it – a bit o’ trench ‘ere

Mind that blinkin’ bit of wire

There’s shell ‘ole on your left there

Lift ‘em up a little ‘igher

Stick it, lad, ye’ll soon be there now

Want best ‘ere for a while?

Let ‘im down then – gently, gently

There you are, lad, that’s the style

Want a drink mate? ‘Ere’s me bottle

Lift ‘is head up for ‘im, Jack

Put my tunic underneath ‘im

‘Ows that chummy?  That’s the tack!

Guess we’d better make a start now

Ready for another spell?

Best be goin’, we won’t ‘urt ye

But ‘e might just start to shell

Are you right, mate? Off we goes then

That well over on the right

Gawd almighty, that’s a near ‘un!

‘Old your end up good and tight

Nigh mind, lad, you’re for blighty

Mind this rotten bit of board

We’ll soon ‘ave ye tucked in bed, lad

‘Opes ye gets to my old ward

No more war for you my ‘earty

This’ll get ye well away

12 good months in dear old blighty

12 good months if you’re a day

M.O. got a bit of something

What’ll stop that blasted pain

Ere’s a rotten bit o’ ground, mate

Lift of ‘igher – up again

Wish ‘ed stop ‘is blasted shellin’

Makes it rotten for the lad

When a feller’s been and got it

It affects ‘im twice as bad

Ow’s it goin’ now then sonny?

‘Ere that narrow bit of trench

Careful, mate, ther’s some dead jerries

Lawd almighty, what a stench!

‘Ere we are now, stretcher case boys

Bring him aht a cup o’ tea

Inasmuch as ye have done it

Ye have done it unto me.”

Emily Mayhew

A Great Jefferson Quote

Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States, was the chief draftsman of this country’s Declaration of Independence and is renowned as one of the most brilliant and scholarly chief executives this country has ever had.  If I had to choose one quote of his as my favorite, it would be this: 

“What care I if my neighbor worships one god or twenty?  It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”  

Stalin Potsdam Quote

Whenever I hear leftists deplore how Harry Truman’s evil lead to the outbreak of the cold war, I’m reminded of something Joseph Stalin said at the Potsdam conference in Berlin outside in July of 1945. A reporter asked Stalin if he was happy to be where he was (42 months earlier the sound of German artillery fire was audible within the Kremlin).  Stalin’s response was, “Czar Alexander made it to Paris.”  If anyone thinks old Uncle Joe would have been satisfied with making it to Paris, I can get you a great deal on a bridge in Brooklyn.  

Archie Griffin

For the benefit of Britains who want to know who occupies a place in American hearts analogous to the British royals: a very few actors, a very few coaches and very few athletes.  In Columbus, Ohio, Archie Griffin is generally regarded as slightly less than a god and a great deal more than a mere mortal.  This is partially because he is the only football player in history to be a two-time winner of the Heisman trophy (awarded each year to America’s top college football player).  Archie has spent the 40 years since his college playing days playing in the NFL, serving as Ohio State’s Assistant Athletic Director, heading OSU’s Alumni Association, and making himself available for every charitable event held in the Buckeye state.  His good name is such that both political parties have approached him to run for governor.  Forgive my warped sense of humor; I think it would hilarious if he took both of them up on that offer.  That way there could be an election night announcement that after hours of Archie Griffin the Republican and Archie Griffin the democrat running neck-in-neck, there would be a surprise winner of Archie Griffin as a write in candidate.