Eight Feet Deep

Last night’s Super Bowl was super. I’m not say­ing that because I rooted for New Orleans. It was per­haps the best foot­ball game out of maybe a hand­ful of Super Bowls I have watched since SB No.I.

The way I came to that deci­sion was real­iz­ing that the game was just fly­ing by. I’d look up and all of a sud­den it was the 2nd quar­ter. It was the half. The Who, I don’t care what any­one says, they are great — even for 12 min­utes. Then came that fab­u­lous onside kick by the Saints at the start of the 3rd quar­ter. When cor­ner­back Tracy Porter snatched away a pass from the Colts’ spec­tac­u­lar quar­ter­back, Pey­ton Man­ning, and ran it 74 yards for the end zone, the deal was sealed.

The TV com­mer­cials, for which all those years I would watch a Super Bowl that sucked, were not all that great dur­ing this one. Prob­a­bly the most mem­o­rable one will be the Snick­ers ad with ancient actors Betty White and Abe Vigoda. Like some­one once observed, just say­ing “Abe Vigoda” does some­thing to you.

I am happy the Saints won for the peo­ple of New Orleans, for the Saints fans and for me. That joy is kind of tem­pered by learn­ing later in the night in a text from my good friend in Arkansas that her dad passed away after a long bout with can­cer. I didn’t know him that well but when your friends hurt, well, I can empathize since I lost both of my par­ents within nine months of each other.

I don’t know how to end this. Some­times you can do it. If I was under dead­line I could do it. But I’m not and and I can’t. So I’ll just say bye for now or some­thing sim­i­lar as this.

(Sorry, the lat­ter phrase is from a song by Traf­fic called “The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys.” It was writ­ten by the late Jim Capaldi and Steve Win­wood when they played with the group in 1971. Win­wood — who sang the song — also per­formed his 1986 solo hit “Higher Love” at the Super Bowl VIP Pre-Show Sun­day. The per­for­mance was broad­cast dur­ing one of the CBS pre-game shows. Here is the MTV video — Warn­ing: May be short com­mer­cial before the video, but it’s worth it. Trust me. I never lie. And I’m always right.)