I think MLK would have become a Steeler fan

(670 words)

I’m guaranteeing the Pittsburgh Steelers are going to beat the hated New England Patriots on Sunday and go on to win the Super Bowl.

Take it to the bank!

And the last time I felt this arrogant about a prediction was Nov. 8 when I assured everyone that on Jan. 20 Americans would be unified in celebration of the landslide election of President Hilary Rodham Clinton.

For what it’s worth.

But I have a good feeling about the Steelers. They haven’t lost since Nov. 13 (it was a bad week for liberal Steeler fans) and are riding a 9-game win streak into Foxboro. They are 5 1/2 point underdogs against the Patriots.

The Steeler dominance upends my custom of artificially rooting for teams based on on cities where I’ve enjoyed getting drunk or ones populated by women who were easy when I was single.

By that standard I used to think I’d one day write a glorious ode about why I was rooting for the Cleveland Browns to win the Super Bowl but it doesn’t look like that’s ever going to happen.

Rooting for Pittsburgh is in my blood. I absolutely love everything about the city. Oddly, it only meets one of my essential criteria for fandom.

Sure, it’s my go-to for drunken revels, something I’ve been doing with reckless abandon (is there any other kind of abandon?) since, oh, the fifth grade.

But all the Pittsburgh debutants I knew when I was single were way too proper and refined for my ambitions. Man, it took me years to find a girl loose enough to even consider letting me kiss her.

Know what I did next?

I married her!

I was 33.

I never kissed a girl from Boston, which is ironic because I feel like I’ve been screwed by people from Boston more than any city on the planet.

The Patriots cheat.

I’m not being rash. My source on this is the Patriots. 

In 2007, coach Bill Belichick agreed to pay a $500,000 fine for Spygate, and Tom Brady dropped his appeals and served a four-game suspension for playing with under-inflated footballs, a phrase bound to induce snickers among those of us with juvenile bents.

Coincidentally, I was recently watching football with my cousin and he predicted pretty boy Brady would be the next celebrity athlete to undergo a sex change operation, ala Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner.

It’s an interesting hypothesis, one that at the very least would silence sports talk radio critics who contend Brady’s been female all along.

As for the NFC, I’m hoping Green Bay wins. I had a splendid time in Wisconsin on a 2009 travel story. I like the people and know they’ll be having fun in Sobelman’s in Milwaukee, a saloon where I’ve never felt more at home for an out-of-stater.

I’ve driven through Atlanta, which given its historic traffic problems is like winning a Super Bowl. But I’ve never socialized there for even a moment — and airports don’t count.

I wrote about Atlanta in ‘14 and how two measly inches of snow turned the entire city into the snowbound Donner Party.

I revere native son Martin Luther King Jr., and he may have become a Falcons fan. Or maybe not. He died young, just 39, in 1968 and was blessed with wisdom and foresight.

Had he lived, I could see him becoming enthralled with the leadership principles of a young Chuck Noll as he led the Steelers to four Super Bowl championships in the ‘70s.

Had King not been murdered, he’d be 88 years old. I like to think he’d have eventually moved to Pittsburgh. I imagine him at a Steeler pep rally smiling and waving a Terrible Towel.

So I’m hoping for all these reasons the Steelers kick the Patriots butts this weekend and go on to win their 7th Super Bowl.

Because the Patriots cheat and the arc of the moral universe is long and bends toward Pittsburgh.

Steelers 35, Patriots 13.

I have a dream.

Related …

Can’t hate the Packers but …

How recollections of good bourbon & horny farm girls influence my NFL picks

Pittsburgh, City of Champions, will win

Flakey thoughts on Atlanta’s snow traffic nightmare

Jump hugs with dangerous drunks

A day of light & darkness; Pens win & mourning Orlando

Wisconsin by a foot

Every time I begin thinking the ear is the ugliest part of the human body I get a glimpse of my barefeet and am reminded the ears will always be runner ups. The terrible daily pounding taken by the feet shows. It’s hands-down the ugliest part of the body.

I think I saw the ugliest feet in my life last week on my way to Wisconsin. It was on a connecting flight from Atlanta to Milwaukee. I had the middle seat. Aisle seat seemed like a crabby guy who resented that I had to squeeze past him to the middle. That’s why I was glad window seat seemed so friendly.

The guy had a really nice smile under what looked like a Santa starter beard. I figured we’d be talking sports before take off. But that was before a truly offensive sort of take off occurred.

As the plane began to taxi, he reached down and took off his blue croks. Now, any man wearing blue croks is showing terrible judgment, but what he did next had me looking around for a parachute and the nearest emergency exit.

He reached down, slipped off the silly blue croks and crossed his leg so that his horrible barefoot was practically resting on my leg. I recoiled as if a leper had plopped down on my lap. The heel was cracked and calloused. With the slightest bit of turbulence it would have ripped multiple holes in my nice khakis. The yellow toenails resembled witches’ teeth.

Amazingly, the middle and window seats on the other side of the aisle were vacant. In violation of every FAA rule and under the scowls of the bitter and overworked flight attendants, I dove over two startled aisle passengers as if I was escaping a live grenade.

It may have been the ugliest human body part I’ve ever seen. Perhaps it was coincidence, but I’ve had trouble sleeping ever since.

Maybe the gods figured they owed me after that because I had a wonderful time in Wisconsin. They treated me and two other golf writers like kings. I played five of the golf-rich state’s best courses (Erin Hills, Whistling Straits, The Bog, Wild Rock and Grand Geneva). The dining was superb.

On the last day under perfect blue skies amidst spangled autumn trees, I played golf with two great guys at The Bog, a magnificent Arnold Palmer course where they welcomed me, a Latrobe resident on assignment to Palmer’s Kingdom magazine, as if I were Palmer himself.

I told my golf partners all about my week and the fine dining and confided I was looking forward to hearty staples like hamburgers and good pizza.

They gave me directions to a place called Sobelman’s behind an obstacle course of construction in a grungy warehouse district of downtown Milwaukee. The place was packed with friendly Brewer fans who were getting ready for the home playoff game against the Phillies.

The friendly owner seemed aghast that I’d been sitting at his bar, unattended for maybe two minutes (I’ve been a regular at places where I’d need to shave between servings so two minutes was nothing to me). He immediately poured me a free beer, the first of three, and I began calculating how my life would change if I moved my family to Milwaukee just to be close to a bar this cool.

The Bloody Mary’s were like salads with vodka dressing. Each pole vault sized-stalk of celery was pinned with a shrimp, a pearl onion, a cherry tomato, an asparagus spear, a jalapeno pepper, a chunk of cheddar and a delicious little dinner sausage. It’s the best Bloody Mary I’ve ever had. Nothing else even comes close.

And the burger was up there, too (the best is still Tessaro’s in Bloomfield near Pittsburgh), but this was outstanding. It had four cheeses, bacon, jalapeno peppers and mustard.

I liked Milwaukee a lot. Friendly people, great bars and restaurants, petty parks and I got to take my picture with the "Bronze Fonz"(give it a Google).

I’m going to try and get around to writing about all that stuff when I finish up my assignment. But the story I’m most looking forward to writing is based on what I saw at the Kohler Design Museum in the world's most posh factory town.

The museum features all the sinks, showers, tubs and faucets that have helped the Kohler family build a bathroom and kitchen empire and lavishly funded the fabulous town and golf resort that is the magnificent centerpiece of the golf boom taking over the state.

But what struck me was the 50-foot wall of commodes in the rear (go ahead and make your own jokes) of the museum. It towers over the space like a troupe of Chinese acrobats stacking porcelain chairs. They rise majestically from floor to ceiling, hundreds of them. If it were possible to flush them simultaneously, it would rival the storied Bellagio water show in Las Vegas.

Truly, in Kohler, the throne itself is king.

My love of stories like this has really held my career back. To succeed, I’m sure I should focus on all the splendors I enjoyed. I should concentrate on the sumptuous dining, the excellent golf, the friendly people and the splendid scenery.

But, no, I intend to forge ahead and write about the great wall of potties.

There’s never been a more perfect metaphor for why my turbulent career’s often in the crapper.

Walton's reruns help prepare for Great Depression II

I’ve been preparing for the coming economic siege by rewatching old episodes of “The Waltons.” We grew up watching the show about how a big close family struggled through the Great Depression.

They didn’t take fancy trips, dine on lobster, upgrade their iPods every couple of years, or enjoy any of the extravagant silliness that’s made the last 20 years so much superfluous fun.

I like that John Boy, a writer, never considered himself some sort of artist. He considered himself a tradesman, someone who’ll get better and better at his craft if he keeps working at it.

I liked that he wrote for the sheer joy of it even when there was no money around. I remember one episode he did a piece of writing for a down-on-his luck country editor and the guy paid him by giving him a live chicken.

I’ve never been paid with a chicken yet, but I’m open to bartering. I like to think of this blog the way John Boy thought of his writing. I do it because I love to write. For me, it’s great fun.

I happen to be writing this while I’m absolutely ensconced in luxury. I’m currently staying at the fabulous Delafield Hotel near Milwaukee. It’s one of those places so nice I’m having trouble figuring out how to turn on simple things like lights. The bathroom is nicer than some spas I’ve been to. It has a whale-sized bathtub with subsurface jacuzzi jets. The shower with six different functions, including rain shower and multiple body jets, one of which keeps goosing me in places where even the most intimate lovers rarely venture.

They’re treating me so nice I haven’t even thought of stealing things like towels and drapes like I usually do from a nice hotel.

This is one of those oh-so-sweet press junkets that are always tempting to someone as casual about journalism ethics as I am. Yesterday, I played Erin Hills and tomorrow I’m off for the stunning Whistling Straits. They’ve plied me with rivers of fine liquor, free golf and the kind of meals that would have had cranky old Grandma Walton huffing about fancy people dining like royalty when working men and women were surviving on scraps and apples.

But I’m here with a clean conscious because I have a bona fide assignment to write about Wisconsin golf and tourism for Kingdom Magazine. I take one of these trips for every 50 I’m offered. Taking more than that would be unfair to my family, it’s uncertain I could get stories published about the destination, and years of watching the Waltons has taught me not to be a pig about such things.

I’m thinking, too, that this might just be this travel writer’s swan song. It looks like we’re in for some damn hard times ahead. People aren’t going to be traveling to swanky resorts for a while.. That means swanky resorts aren’t going to be buying advertisements in golf and travel magazines. That means golf and travel magazines won’t be hiring guys like me to write stories.

Too bad for me.

I once asked my grandfather, who recently died at the age of, yikes, 97, what the Great Depression was like. “You know,” he said, “it wasn’t really all that bad. We had a lot less stuff, but people really helped each other out. It wasn’t too tough.”

That should be reassuring to anyone who listens to the doom sayers who grimly predict we’re in for another Great Depression.

Me, I’ll have some nice memories of my trips to places like this. I’ll scramble to find work, but that’s always been the case with me and many other freelance writers.

On the upside, it’ll give me plenty of time to attend to this little blog, something I enjoy doing. And thanks to those of you who take the time to read it and have told friends to do the same.

It doesn’t earn a dime, but I’m hoping maybe someday a grateful reader will send me a free chicken.