NOVEMBER 7th - Proper Perspective from Pure Futility



This day in 1943 was the last exercise in pure futility that occurred in the NFL. The Detroit Lions fought their way to a zero-zero tie with the New York Football Giants. Or the Giants fought their way with the Lions. It’s been said that a tie is like kissing your sister, but what is a tie in which neither team scores? Is that like kissing your mother? Your brother? A frog? A Barbie doll? I really don’t know. And while I don’t believe a game has to be a track meet to be entertaining, I have to imagine that was a rather boring game to watch. There was a whopping 214 yards of total offense. That’s between both teams. Thomas Jefferson certainly wouldn't have been impressed. But then TJ once saw a an early football game take place between actual lions and giants. When I say “football game” I really mean wrestling and when I say “giants” I really mean that a few rather tall and stout gentlemen put on an old Roman Coliseum style fight against some Lions. The Giants won that matchup, subduing the Lions with their manly muscles and superior intellect. But TJ was not impressed. “Lions probably had their teeth pulled,” he said. He would have been even less impressed with the football game, perhaps because he would have no frame of reference and would have been similar to a blind child wandering into a foreign movie theater mid-movie. He’d been all, “What the heck is going on? Wait till I write to Adams about this weird crap.” All the TJ not being impressed and the mystery of what to compare a scoreless tie to aside, some might look at such a game as a teaching tool. The whole journey-not-the-destination thing. The give-it-your-best-and-you-can-be-happy-with-the-results pep-talk. Or that life is a struggle and you can’t expect to score all the time. And there is value in those lessons. But I have feeling if you asked the players after that game, none of them would have been able to see that value. They would have felt as if they had kissed their mother. Or brother. Or a frog. Or a Barbie doll. I guess proper perspective takes time.

This day has been Marked.

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