The Once-in-a-While

 Daily News 

1  Man, oh man. "Holiday" events attack us like biplanes these days. 

2  Somebody up there schedules these things. They now come at us weekly.

3  The "holiday" I tend to forget about before it happens is the Super Bowl. Ever since my 49ers became a bunch of Sad Sacks (see below), I don't think of the Super Bowl as a holiday. When people think of holidays, they seldom factor the Super Bowl in. 

Here is the way I see the 49ers' past season, metaphorically. I consider it a visual poem: 

4  Each year, you know a few things. You know you're either going to visit someone for Super Bowl, or that you are going to throw a Super Bowl party. In the back of your mind, you know that the Super Bowl is not on a par with Christmas or New Year. I include all New Years in that. But hey, it is still a party. 

5  When your team isn't even there, you adopt a team. Then you enjoy amazing food, adult beverages, and boisterous laughs with family and friends. 

6  Parties grow loud, and the laughs come in droves. The game proper works as an NFL lava lamp.

7  Forgetting troubles becomes the order of the day. Laughter follows laughter, and somewhere in all of this the Super Bowl dissipates. Star particles are all that remain. And dirty dishes.

8  Usually. 


9  THIS past Super Bowl scorched the skies and turned heads. It took on a life that grabbed all of us by the eyes, ears, noses and throats. What at first looked like a blowout twisted in a macabre display of courage and swag by the crafty Tom Brady.

"Give my creation LIIIIIIIIIIFFFFFFEEEE!!!"

   He came alive in the fourth quarter and executed the greatest comeback in Super Bowl history. AND he did it in the first overtime game ever. Strong stuff to forget any time soon. It took me until yesterday morning before I forgat about the game. Monsters exist. Tom Brady was a monster.

10  Not biting, huh?

11  Nah, there is no modern word "forgat." I used an archaic form, which means that at one point, it WAS used. It was used both as a transitive verb (with an object) AND as an intransitive verb (without an object). I thought I could slip one past you. You could write only so much about Brady. Let us move on, shall we? I don't want to forget what I already forgat.

12  So, here go: Here from Dictionary.com, which now seems to own the rights to all dictionaries: meet the word "forgat.":

forget

     [fer-get]

     verb (used with object), forgot or (Archaic) forgat; forgotten or forgot; forgetting.

1.      To cease or fail to remember; be unable to recall:     
      To forget someone's name.

     verb (used without object), forgot  or (Archaic) forgat; forgotten or forgot; forgetting.

My own note: you get the idea. Most of us know how

to use the word "forgot," so that's a given. I won't
bother you with fourteen different examples on how to
use the word. Still friends?

13  That was harder than I thought. Fun little sideshow, sort of like driving around a street island. What else can I say about the Super Bowl? This:

14  Tom Brady fell to the turf after the game. 

15  He fell apart. To me, it looked genuine. Coach Bill Belichick fought through the throngs of reporters and rubberneckers to reach his QB, and to embrace him. That  wasn't showboating. It was a human moment. Overwhelming, and under-reported.

16  Brady's mother, dying of cancer, was at the game. As a former teacher, I saw a breakdown. As a human being, I saw that as well. If you watched, you saw. I can find no footage posted online. None. 

17  Incredible. 

18  So.

19  That game was a hard one to forget. 

20  I like to think I forgat it, but I'd be lying. 

21  It got to me. 

22  Not gonna lie.

23  It got to me. 

24  Moving On, Part One: I've said it before and I'll say it again: "Not gonna lie" implies to me that the guy who says it is REALLY saying this: "Not gonna lie. I usually DO lie, but this time, I'm not gonna!"

25  Anybody lookin'?

26  I'm gonna get up and walk here for about two hours. Be right back.

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31  Okay, I'm back. 

32  <crickets>

33  I salute Tom Brady and the New England Patriots' entire organization for showing us that the best team won. And that there is a human story attached, a story we will someday hear, but probably nothing in the near future.

34  They left it on the field, which is as it should be.

35   I'll remember that moment even though it wasn't my team. I didn't even watch it that carefully when I was at the party my sister Gayle threw. Awesome time. 

36  I noticed it Monday morning when I watched the recording. I think it was a recording. I don't really know it it was or if it wasn't. 

37  Perhaps.

38  

39     

40

41

I have had a most rare vision. I have had a dream--past

the wit of man to say what dream it was. Man is but an

ass if he go about to expound this dream. Methought I 

was, and methought I had--but man is a patched fool

if he will offer to say what methought I had. The eye of

man hat not heard, the ear of man hat not seen, man's 

hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor

his heart to report what my dream was.

---Nick Bottom, A Midsummer Night's Dream, iv, i

42 ...and there you have it. A short OIAWDN due to fonts jumping and AI (artificial intelligence=fake intelligence) deciding what goes up and what comes down. This piece could have been extended, but why? 

43  Gottago. 

44  Words, words, words. Sometimes we use too many, and that ain't good. We're better off listening, if you ask me. 

45  Ah, listen anyway. <they do.>

46  It got a bit quiet, don't you think?

47  I turned off the gosh-darned Teevee.

48  The silence deafens.

49  My kind of silence.

50  See you again. I really DO gottago though. Keepin' it short makes everyone smile. So today I keep it short. For you. And you. And for you too. 

51  Live life.

52  Love life.

53  Peace.

~H~

fin.