This Week in Normality — First Loves

This is a topic that we’ve touched on, in some way, with other themes but we (read: I) was hard up for a theme and so, in the proverbial late stages of the game, Mustardseed did throw out an idea which read thusly:

Theme Idea for this week: First Loves

I’m thinking something like that first comic or piece of music or whatever that just made you feel something you never forgot. Make sense?

To which I responded…

Hey that sounds good…

Everyone, read Mustardseed’s suggestion below and write like the wind!

I actually did think of one, but I’ll add it in for a later date.

And here we are…isn’t it exciting to look behind the “curtain” and see how the magic works…don’t answer that.

It also occurred to me that I used my best “first love” story last week for Back to School but that’s alright, I will recover.

And, actually, since I have already used that (damn moving, if I do say so myself) story about my wife and I in high school, I realize that this theme does, actually, afford me the opportunity to write about something I’ve been trying to shoe horn in here for several weeks now.

All faithful Normalinauts know that Gilgrim and I are fans of the beautiful sport, also known as football. Not the American version here in the states (well, Gilgrim is a fan of that kind of football, but no one is perfect), but proper football. As it happens, I grew up in a house (and extended family) whose sole sports passion resided in baseball generally, and the Los Angeles Dodgers, specifically. I doubt there ever has, or ever will, be a bigger Dodger fan than my grandmother who, literally less than two days before she died, in intensive care and unable speak, communicated to me that the Dodgers had lost a game and she was upset about how weak the bullpen looked late in the season (that is one of the great memories of my grandmother, in fact). I’m fairly certain, in fact, that in any detailed study of my DNA one would find a “Dodger gene.” We recently took our newest round of family pictures and all four us, wife, three year old daughter, 8 month old son and myself were all wearing Dodger shirts.

But much like you can’t choose your family, my passion for the Dodgers is ingrained. My love of football, however, was something that I fell into.

Jezmon can attest to the fact that, in the early years of grade school, I spent nearly every possible moment playing football (Jezmon and I, by the way, went to kindergarten together…Mrs. Steven’s afternoon class represent!). I’m not exactly sure what it was about playing soccer that was so addicting but it probably had something to do with the constant running the sport affords and the fact that until I got to the first grade I had never even heard the term “soccer.” It had an almost mystical feel to it…you mean, there’s a sport where you don’t use your hands?! To a six year old who could rattle off the Dodgers entire 25 man roster and the batting averages of every starting position player, an introduction into a different sport, one that tons of kids at school were playing all the time (thanks to AYSO), was the first time I was exposed to a bigger world outside my own house. And it was a world that called to me and I desperately wanted to be a part of.

Remember how I said I’ve wanted to bring this topic up for a while? You will, no doubt, notice I forgo no opportunity to disparage American football and so, in this particular instance, I will bow to the greater wisdom of John Cleese in helping to explain my one reason for my inordinate love of football…and, as and added bonus, my dislike of American football.

That clip comes from a documentary that Cleese did called The Art of Football (or, stupidly, the Art of Soccer in this country) which I highly recommend if you’re a football fan, or even remotely interested in the game at all.

Now you can find, in any sport, moments or games that defy explanation. For my money, however, there is no other sport that can match football in the possibility to demonstrate the unexpected. In part, I think, it’s the nature of continued play that Cleese mentions in the above clip. When you stop play as little as possible (unlike all three major sports in this country) the ability of the players to change a game at a moments notice is really hindered.

Also, and this is true hands down, no sport can match football for pure passion from both players and fans. If you’ve never experienced a true soccer match in person (and I’m not talking MLS here) then you’ve never experienced sport at its most emotional.

As a demonstration of both these properties, I’m going to show you a five minute clip from the 2005 European Champions League final. The Champions League is a competition in which all the top clubs of Europe compete for a chance to be crowned best club in Europe. The 2005 final pitted my (underdog) Liverpool squad against (heavily favored) AC Milan and has come to be considered the greatest comeback in Champions League history (and one of the greatest in the history of football).

But, of course, football isn’t the only thing we care about around here, and so in this installment of Normality Restored…

Oedipa movingly considers her first loves, musically and emotionally, and the interplay of both.

Stoker reveals the first comic he ever truly “geeked out” over.

And, eventually, Mustardseed will be posting some article about something or other…I guess, we’ll have to see. But, you know, Cubans….