Anyway, I digress. On Saturdays we watched Howard Kosel as he announced everything from ice skating to boxing, to track and field. Whatever the sport was, my dad was watching. On Sundays, my siblings and I got up and had breakfast (Sunday breakfast was always Dad's day turn to cook) and then we got dressed and caught the white bus the church sent around to take us to Sunday School. Daddy never went to Sunday church, so he stayed home and watched his sports. Sunday's were football and car racing, and he loved it.Monday nights were Monday night football. Daddy would come home from work and eat dinner with us, (in those days we actually sat down to dinner as a family around the dining room table every night) and then he would watch the news just before the game. Being Monday he spent all day working hard so he was tired at the end of the day. As he sat on the couch every Monday night watching the game he would inevitably fall asleep. He was funny though. No matter how deep in sleep he might be, no matter how loud the snore, if you tried to change the channel (which I admittedly attempted many times in my teenage years when my "bedtime" was later) he would wake up instantly, and remind you that "I'm watching that, turn it back". Granted changing on a channel then wasn't stealth and silent like it is today with remotes, it was dial than clicked and snapped every time you moved from one channel to the next. I wanted to point out that he was actually sleeping, but I knew it was futile, so I returned the channel to the football game and let him finish watching it through his closed eyelids.
Flash forward 40 some odd years (yes they have been odd) and my Jeff will watch any sport he can when given the opportunity. It's actually quite funny. There are literally dozens of channels that broadcast sporting events for us to chose from today, 7 days a week . And many providers actually offer packages that will give even more depending on the season and the sport. Direct TV offers an NFL Package so you can see EVERY game on Sunday. There are Nascar packages, Baseball Packages, Golf Packages, Basketball Packages, and more.
I refuse to by the packages (priced at hundred of dollars for the season), so Jeff has to suffer with the dozens of channels he already has, poor guy. Anyway, I find it crazy that he and many men watch so many sports, even ones they don't really care about or like. For instance Jeff is a baseball, football, car racing, golf guy. He doesn't really follow basketball, tennis, motor-cross, winter sports, and other miscellaneous. But when desperation sets in and nothing else can be found he suddenly sparks an interest in one of these sports which are obscure in our household. Its not uncommon for me to wake up at 5 a.m. when he is have a difficult time sleeping and to see tennis, or water polo or some some other oddity on TV. Even in the sports he follows, there are occasionally games and events that he doesn't like or want to watch, but...and here's the crazy obsessive part....even if he has no interest, just because he needs his sports fix, he will watch anyway.
You may wonder what sparked this whole blog, well it was the Ryders Cup. Yes, for those who don't already know, this is a golf tournament played in which Americans compete against the Europeans. There are a series of rounds which include teams, couples, and singles and at the end they determine who is best, Americans or Europeans. Jeff has stated many times how much he hates this event, and yet, when he could find no other sport to occupy his time, he watched it anyway. Its the equivalent of me saying I hate Southpark and then sitting down to watch a 3 day marathon of it.
I've acclimated to the sports enthusiast Jeff is, and I can even embrace it in measure. I join him in his football picks each season and have even won in the past. I don't mind a little sport in my life and even surprise myself and Jeff when I know a little about it in conversation now and again. When I get bored, I grab a book or find something else to entertain myself with. The only thing I don't understand and I lose patience with is the need to watch a sport or event just for the sake of watching sports. If you have no interest, no desire to keep up with it, then why waste your time.
Are most men like this?
I still use two of those TV cabinets that were pieces of furniture. We took the TV and all the innards out, and just use the cabinets to put the TV on top. I was thinking about that one day and how we had to watch TV looking down, instead of eye level. But since my family had 8 kids and one couch and my dad's recliner, we all sat on the floor to watch tv, and that would be eye level for us..lol
ReplyDeleteMy life is planned around sporting events that may or may not be on TV. It's rather annoying, to say the least! So, yes... separate TVs for us.
ReplyDeleteLol. We have 4 TV's and it doesn't matter where I go when I turn one on its always sports.
DeleteYou haven't seen Rod in action with his sports yet. Jeff has some catching up to do with his brother. The other day he was watching Football on the TV, Golf on his laptop, racing on his cell phone and getting the football scores from his Kindle. He is such a multitasker.
ReplyDeleteThose Kent boys, perhaps we can find a group therapy for them,. Hi My last name is Kent and I'm a sportsaholic.
DeleteI was up at 4:45 this morning to pump and my show of choice is Law and
ReplyDeleteOrder. When Joel got up, I left for 2 minutes. when i came back, it was on espn. he would say the same thing about me and law and order or csi, that you would say about him and his sports. thankfully its not as obsessive because he refuses to watch sports he doesn't like, but he likes a lot of them.
HAHA, Ember, I swear my TV's are magic because they change to sports when I turn my back and no-one is even in the room watching them when I return. :)
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