Seahawks

Our house was quiet on Sunday.  We have no television and we have no interest in sports.  I feel we are part of a small minority group whose lives are not affected one tiny bit by the outcome of a football game. 

All day long I kept questioning myself, wondering if there is something wrong with me.  I thought deep thoughts and remembered old memories, trying to understand just when it was, and why it was, that sports games never took hold in my life.

My two younger brothers played little league their entire childhood.  I sat next to my mother for years as she kept score at baseball, and yelled her lungs out at football games. 

More than once, I was outside when super sonic screaming emitted from our home, window rattling and neighbor’s head’s turning as my mother and everyone else in our household watched some “incredible play” on TV.  I was so embarrassed.  To think people could scream with such abandon over the direction a ball was traveling, perplexed me to no end. Our home created high decibel levels long before Seahawks fans, I’m sure.

I still remember the day my mother yelled at me to come inside and watch TV.  It was a beautiful day and I had no desire to be indoors, but she said history was about to be made and insisted I see it with my own eyes. Hank Aaron was on the verge of breaking Babe Ruth’s homerun record, and to her, it was imperative I witness it.  I sat there, watched it happen, rolled my eyes, and went back outside.  The only other time she ordered me to sit in front of the TV to watch “history in the making” was when Neil Armstrong landed on the moon.  Now that was impressive.

When I was in the market for a husband, I had only three criteria.  First, he had to be a follower of Jesus; second, he couldn’t be a smoker; and third, he had to have no interest in sports.  The field was narrow and selections few, but I found him.  The fact he is Norwegian was a bonus.

For the same reason I don’t get manicures or wear make-up or have my hair done all fancy, I don’t watch sports.  They all take too much time and cost money I’d rather not spend. 

Even when we’ve been given tickets to sporting events, I sit there and think about all the money people have spent just to watch a game.  A game.  I can’t help but think what good could be done with that money, if it was funneled to a worthy cause, instead.  But that’s just me.  The minority.

If all this exuberance for sports went into any other venue, people’s sanity would be questioned - just as I questioned my own, sitting alone in a quiet house on Sunday… until Downton Abbey came on.  Then I had to go visit my neighbor who has a TV.