The Pecan Park Eagle

Where was I when the lights went out?

About five minutes into the Super Bowl, the power went out in our house. I did what I normally do under these circumstances, I explored and used all the words I know that are expressions of unhappiness over unpleasant, unforeseen bummer events.

My sweet wife immediately exercised her right to say that she found my reactions to the situation as totally unacceptable, so I tried taking what I thought might be  a more constructive path. I searched for in the dark and found a candle. Then I lit the candle and used the flickering light for retrieving the emergency number for Center Point Energy that we have pinned to a wall in the kitchen. After Ike, you might think I would know it by heart, but that was not the case.

After cascading through the automatic robot answering service long enough, I finally guessed that the “gas leak” button might get me quicker human contact than any other. As it turned out, I was right, one of the few times that has ever happened in my normal experience with emergency robot numbers.

"How come the power's just off on our block?"

CenterPoint couldn’t explain why only our block was suddenly shut down without power. “It’s probably a fuse,” the CP woman told me. “We’re dispatching someone out there now to check on it. Of course, someone may have run into a pole somewhere – or a bird could’ve blown out a transformer, but, whatever, we’ll have your power back on by 10:00 PM, most likely.”

Great! They’ll have it back in time to hear either a Steeler or a Packer QB tell us that’s he’s “going to Disneyworld. I’ll just have to go watch it in a restaurant or a sports bar. I invited Norma to come with me, but she doesn’t give a rip about sports. She turned me down. Once she had heard Christina Aguilera sing, and misplay Our National Anthem, my wife’s interest in the rest of the night, except for halftime, was gone. She chose to stay home and meditate in the dark and not worry about when the lights might return.

I decided to drive down the block to the bar at Los Tios Mexican Restaurant. I don’t drink, but I know the place as a diner – and I knew they had a great HD TV there, with few customers. I could get by with iced tea, guacamole, chips, salsa, and a little electricity.

"Don't eat anything!"

“Don’t eat anything,” Minnie offered. “Maybe you would be better off watching the rest of the game from some place like Best Buy. You’ve already had a big barbeque lunch today and you don’t need to top it off with Mexican food.”

“Best Buy, huh,” I thought. “Wonder why I didn’t think of that option?’ Then I went out to my car and drove alone to the bar at Los Tios. I did OK there, I thought. All I had to eat were chips, guacamole, salsa, and one tiny single order of a chili con queso corn puff. That wasn’t too bad, was it?

There was one guy at the table next to me doing a steady plow on Martini Row. All others came and went, but all shared one common trait. They were all either Packer fans or pick-a-winner people. I was the only fan at Los Tios pulling for the Steelers.

My adult son Neal join me in the fourth quarter after he got off work.And Norma called with about four minutes to go to let me know that our power had been restored. It was really my two-minute warning, but I finished my tea and stayed for the end of the game, anyway.

GO Steelers! GO CenterPoint! You both need to get your acts together.

Robert Cook of Brown Deer, Wisconsin will miss his first Super Bowl tomorrow.

Maybe He Should’ve Gone Anyway! Robert Cook, 79,  is depressed. One of the four members of the “Never Miss” Super Bowl Club is in the hospital and will miss his first Super Bowl in the history of the game all the way back to its start in 1967. If it’s that depressing, or if depression is the reason he is in the hospital, anyway, maybe his doctors and family should just pack him up and send him off to his happy destiny in Dallas. – Unless he’s in the hospital for a heart, lung, or kidney transplant, those folks need to realize that they are killing the one thing that has defined his life at 5:38 PM CST tomorrow. The Super Bowl will be starting – and Robert Cook will be missing. – Sad to say, I don’t look for Robert Cook to be around Planet Earth much longer after this disappointment, but I hope I’m wrong.

As for the rest of us. Most of us have never been to a single Super Bowl. They are simply just great party days for millions of people, including many who know little to nothing about the game of football itself. I watch – and I am basically a baseball fan looking for something to do in this off-season time away from America’s great game on the diamond. How much do we really remember about the winners? I can remember that the Saints won last year because the media turned it into a Katrina Redemption Event for the City of New Orleans, but who won the big game in 2009? Or 2008? I really couldn’t say. Can you?

Now ask me who won the World Series any given year? Do you recall who won the World Series 1994? How about 1904?

That Ripoff Tailgate $200 Ticket for fans who want to park outside Cowboy Stadium and watch the game on TV while they are cooking during the Super Bowl ought to be a hoot to watch too in this cold weather. If it warms up, all they have to do then is dodge the ice sheets that will come tumbling down on the prime locations to make it a completely eventful day.

Will Jerry Jones be allowed to roam the sidelines, anyway, even though it is not his Cowboys team suited out to play on either side of the gridiron? I hope not. Jerry Jones’s ego in football is like George Steinbrenner’s big head once was in baseball, but with added help from some kind of extra self-aggrandizing sniff of addiction to personal glory. The Rooney family and the Pittsburgh Steelers are the best argument that comes to mind that nice people with class are capable of winning too. Or even more often than the narcissists.

So, who’s going to win? I’m pulling for Pittsburgh, but only because my good friend Jimmy Wynn is a deep, deep yellow and black Steeler fan from way back. A Steeler win will make jimmy happy – and that thought makes me happy too. Otherwise, I’d just like to see a good, close game. I do think Pittsburgh will win. If the Steelers play as they did in the first half of their AFC championship game against the Jets, they should shut down Aaron Rodgers and the Packers. On the other hand, if Pittsburgh performs Sunday as they did in the 2nd half of their AFC championship game against the Jets, the Packers will roll all over them.

We’re about 20.5 hours away from kickoff at this writing. It’s way too early to call Pappasito’s for our Super Bowl take-out order.

Enjoy the game. We’ll meet again on the other side of this annual celebration and deflation of great expectations.