The Loneliness Of The Football Non-Fan

     Late last night there was much rejoicing from sea to shining sea, though none more, I'm sure, than in my home-town of Philadelphia

...where things may have gotten a weence out of hand,

...in the celebrations of the Philadelphia Eagles' historic win over the New England Patriots in last night's Super Bowl.

    And today the celebration continued among happy Eagles fans everywhere. I saw it and heard it all around me: this morning among the elliptical machines in the gym, during my yoga class, in the grocery aisle of the supermarket where I stopped to pick up some shiitake mushrooms and kale, and all up and down my Facebook wall.
     And I, alas, stood alone like one of the foolish maidens shut out of the feasting. All the more foolish, some might say, because I shut myself out. 
      Because I'm a non-fan of football. Make that a super-non-fan.
      How that happened to a girl who grew up in a big football town with three sports-loving brothers is anybody's guess. Mayhaps a genetic kink in my DNA.
      In any case I  distinctly recall during the fall and winter Sunday afternoons of my teen-aged years sitting at the dining room table sipping some tea and trying to read a book or do my homework or hatch a plot to move to France while my brothers and father watched football on the TV in the living room, whooping it up, every now and then jumping off the couch and letting out with a protracted yell, Go! Go! Go! or No! No! No!  that would end in a scream of ecstasy or one of agony.
     I wish they'd quit doing that, I'd think to myself.

     However when my son Tommy played football in middle school,

...I would feel the excitement from time to time. Yes!  I'd joyfully shout (to myself) any time the coach took him off the field and directed him to the bench where I knew he'd be safe from injury at least for a little while.
        And I never missed a Bishop Hartley High School football game and glowed with pride the years my child was one of the players out on the field...in the band.
     Theresa, the Bishop Hartley High School Band Field Commander.

    Before and after the band's half-time performance I'd try to find someone to chat with, another disinterested parent who like me had no idea what was going on out on the field, or else I'd mosey over to the snack bar to see if any parent volunteers were needed to work, or else I'd walk 'round and 'round the track that ringed the football field, stopping to throw my hands up in the air and cheer when I saw everybody else doing it.
       I've not watched, or pretended to watch, a football game since then.
      And so last night, while the rest of the country whopped, wailed, cheered, booed, rejoiced and lamented, I sat in the quiet of my self-exile, as during the football games of my youth.

       I didn't dare tell my 97-year-old mother, who definitely got it said for the Eagles.

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