We search our hearts in this season of joy and light and find that, as usual, we come up lacking, but what the heck. Bowl season is upon us and we must persevere. Our Irish, Anglo-Saxon and Cherokee (‘Skins’ as our Osage friend called ‘em) forefathers would demand no less, though Gaelic football, rugby and lacrosse are mysteries to us.
Not so the American variety of four downs, seven men on the line of scrimmage, one man in motion and drawing plays in the dirt. We are infallible, except for taking the McHale’s Navy team against the Montezumas of San Diego St. in the Poinsettia Bowl. By the way, what is this trend of enunciating the last “i” in this Christmas flower? Have we been locked up too long in our hillbilly trailer park?
We digress. A beloved sibling used to give us his bowl picks each year, carefully copied by hand and delivered personally to his inner circle. We will usurp him this year because 35 games are too much for one man to bear. As we recall, the young man incorrectly predicted a Roger Staubach-led Navy team win over Texas in the 1964 Cotton Bowl game. But we could be wrong. We often are.
Not so in the 21st century. Our predictions for entertainment purposes only:
Wisconsin over TCU in the Rose Bowl
Arkansas over Ohio State in the Sugar Bowl
Stanford over Virginia Tech in the Orange Bowl
Texas A&M over LSU in the Cotton Bowl
Our beloved Sooners over Connecticut in the Fiesta Bowl
Auburn over Oregon in the BCS championship
We will not pick the Chick-fil-A or GoDaddy.com bowls, though we will be watching them for entertainment purposes only.
On Christmas Eve, we must entertain ourselves while counting our blessings on this holiest of nights:
Beautiful children and beautiful women.
Gold, frankincense and myrrh.
Golfing buddies.
Peace on Earth, good will toward men.
Same old Jets.
Christmas ties you can only wear one day a year.
Who has it better than us?
