Turns Out: We Could, We Did, We Were

I've long since exceeded the age where I can, or care to (more accurately), remember who won the Super Bowl for more than about three minutes after the game is over. It's funny in a way. I remember the Packers winning the first two, then the NY Jets and then the Kansas City Chiefs, I think. And then decades of white noise and hum. It's not like the game wasn't played, or the effort to win it wasn't expended. I lost sight of it.

Sort of like moon shots. The early ones we all sat up for, all communicants at the electronic seance in the living room, and by the time they became routine, and we started taking them for granted (perhaps) and not doing as much operational risk management as we could have, people got killed and no one was watching. Just me, or were you surprised to learn there was a shuttle launch scheduled for Super Bowl Sunday (but delayed by weather until Monday)?

Talk about how things change. While I can remember the Packers winning the first Super Bowl, I drew a blank on the halftime entertainment and had to look it up. Turns out Al Hirt was the big name that year, imagine that. My father played trumpet, or had one at least, and was a huge fan of Java. In the midst of a British Invasion that was to sweep away all previously defined categories of music, Java became just another thing my father and I didn't have in common.

I had forgotten, or never known (I forget which, maybe both) that Prince had played a Super Bowl halftime show. I seem to recall the Rolling Stones (or three of them) did and there was Tom Petty and Bruce Springsteen, Sir Paul McCartney, and Justin Timberlake and the Wardrobe Malfunction.

With all that as a frame of reference and my own twenty-two year old daughter's reaction to The Who as a guide, I was happy for us old folks Sunday night. It was strange to see Zak Starkey (Ringo's son from Maureen) behind the drum kit, but anyone behind the kit after Moon the Loon was going to be strange. And there were certainly enough lights and I assume Jerry Bruckheimer had a role in the production of the program since he tends to appropriate so many Who songs as themes (there's no truth to the rumor that the pilot for CSI: Norwich has Eminence Front, by the way) and coming out of the speakers on the side of the television it sounded great, didn't it?

I remember what The Who looked like when they arrived on these shores and how little resemblance to them the two survivors bore Sunday night. Then I looked in the mirror. Life will do that to ya-no matter who you are. They're All in Love, with whom they are, or were.
-bill kenny