Dave Richards for February 6th…………….
--Here are a few random thoughts. Mardi Gras in Woonsocket was really great. A super party and a lot of fun and it’s all the result of the work of the Northern Rhode Island Council on the Arts. Of course, Woonsocket celebrates our Mardi Gras one week early each year. Some people thought it was so we could get our choice of the best bands one week earlier, but I think it was so we can celebrate twice. (wink)
Mardi Gras in New Orleans and most other places is this coming weekend, just ahead of Shrove Tuesday, the 13th. I thought it was a rather bum deal that Ash Wednesday falls on Valentine’s Day this year. I suppose there will be a run on ‘heart-shaped fish’ at the markets.
--Before the week is out the Winter Olympics will begin in South Korea. I’ll tell you the Olympics have been taking it on the chin over the last few years. Some people in my business who are often called to operate the TV and radio equipment used in covering the games for the world-wide audience are skipping it again this year because of the threats of North Korea and last year because of the Zika Virus issues in South America.
I’m not at all looking forward to the Winter Olympics, myself. I do enjoy watching the curling and ice hockey, but the network buries those sports at 3am is seems. Primetime TV viewing is reserved for the ladies. Figure skating will take front and center, I am told, and the folks at the Hallmark Channel are preparing for a huge loss of viewership. Hopefully they made enough money with the kittens and puppies on Super Bowl Sunday to tide them over until after the Olympics.
--Speaking of Super Bowl Sunday, I heard some sports fans discussing the Patriots loss to the Eagles in that game. Like true sports fans, they lost sight of the big picture, preferring to analyze the minutia. I don’t suffer from such myopia. I consider that NFL football is a spectator’s sport for most everyone. All they owe us is a good show and I thought the Pats put on one heck of a show all season long. They played ‘over their heads’ in most games and found a way to dig deep and come back to win games to the point that by the end of the season they had home-field advantage for the entire length of the playoffs. Considering the way they looked at that start of the season, they made a remarkable recovery.
So, in the Big Game, the breaks just weren’t going in the Patriots’ favor. They were playing a team which had been watching the Pats for years and were taking and executing plays right out of the Patriots’ Play-book. Emulation is the sincerest form of flattery.
Okay, I do understand that the one goal for every NFL player each season is to end the season wearing a Super Bowl ring. I get it. But they did. Yes, they lost the Big Game, but you need to remember there are 32 teams in the NFL. There are about 53 guys on each team, all told. That means that 30 whole teams, almost 1,600 NFL players, some of them very good players, didn’t get a ring at all this year.
It seems to me that if you start off stumbling, and then you end your season with a Super Bowl ring, you should be proud of that accomplishment. Yes, you want to win that big game, but I say being beaten by the only other 53 guys who got rings is still a compliment to your team. Not what you’d want, but a clear accomplishment anyway.
New England Patriots fans should not feel badly. They should be proud their team was beaten only by the best team. They played well, never gave up until the clock ran out, and were beaten by a team which was better that day. No shame in my book. I say to the gang from Foxboro, “Thanks for a Great and very Entertaining Season!”
--Before I go I need to say something about our state’s busses. I’ve been a supporter of RIPTA for many years. My heart goes out to them as they struggle to be relevant in the 21st century. They now have a fleet of very ecologically-friendly busses, no more black puffs of smoke choking other drivers. They even went out and added these new devices which announce in an almost human voice when the bus is turning, just in case a blind person should be nearby.
Well, from our “No Good Deed Goes Unpunished” Department comes word that RI Representative Lauren Carson of Newport is leaping to the aid of her constituents who live along bus routes and consider these audible warning devices a nuisance. She wants them turned off in residential neighborhoods. Hmmmmmmm……Seems to me that blind people live in residential neighborhoods, too.
--That’s what I think. What do you think? Comments to: dave@onworldwide.com or postal mail to Dave Richards, WOON Radio, 985 Park Avenue, Woonsocket, RI 02895-6332.
Thanks for reading.
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