Fight The Good Fight

Hello World, Happy February! Now that January is officially over, we'd all better hold onto our hats, because February brings with it an almost unparalleled abundance of events, occasions and celebrations, compared to the longer and more high-profile months of the year. It starts off with a bang with Groundhog Day on the 2nd, and you can be sure that the world will be watching the various furry prognosticators with rapt attention as always. (I may as well say right now, if any of them predict 6 weeks of raining frogs or plagues of locusts, I'm outta here, and that's not just a lot of fire and brimstone, by thunder.) Then there's the infamous Waitangi Day on the 6th, and it remains to be seen if this year will be one of the quiet ones of solemn observances, or instead one of the other kind, where riots break out all over the region, and the widespread violence grabs headlines on an international scale. Of course, we can't forget Chinese New Year, which blasts off on the 10th with all the paper dragons and fireworks that anyone could hope for, ringing in the Year of the Snake. The party starts in earnest on the 12th with Mardi Gras, and we already know from past experience that The Big Easy will be The Big Dizzy, before all of the beads, masks, and party hats are finally all swept away until next time. Ash Wednesday will be here before we know it, on the 13th, ushering in Lent for millions of Christians around the globe, and leading up to Easter, which is early this year on March 31. (On the Eastern Orthodox side of things, Easter won't come around until May 5th, and the combination of that plus Cinco de Mayo on the same day should be an international mulligatawny that would be hard to beat, and that's not just the tequila talking, believe me.) Because Lent starts so early, unfortunately the patron saint of romance and frivolity will have his wings clipped for Valentine's Day on the 14th, alas. Americans of all ideological stripes have the chance to honor the chief executives past and present with Presidents Day on the 18th, and political wrangling aside, I think we can all agree that it's nice to have a day off, for whatever reason. After that, the festivities begin to wind down with National Tortilla Chip Day on the 24th, National Pistachio Day on the 26th, Polar Bear Day on the 27th (are they also famous for predicting anything, I wonder?) and Public Sleeping Day on the 28th. Whew! That's a month and a half full of celebrations crammed into a mere 28 days - it's no wonder they need Public Sleeping Day at the end of it, so please save me a bench! Of course, the big noise in February now is the venerable Super Bowl on Sunday the 3rd, now in its 47th historic year, and still going strong, among hard-core fans and novices alike. This year's contest features the plucky Baltimore Ravens and surprising San Francisco 49ers, and is unusual not only for the unheralded quarterbacks on both coasts (Joe Flacco from the east and Colin Kaepernick from the west) but also because this is the first time in the sport's history that the opposing teams will be coached by brothers - John Harbaugh for the Ravens and Jim for the 49ers, a couple of chips off the old block of legendary college coach Jack Harbaugh. Now that's what I call taking sibling rivalry to a whole new level, and one that would tax the advice-giving skills of TV father figures like Ozzie Nelson, Fred MacMurray and Hugh Beaumont, all rolled into one, with Bill Cosby tossed in for good measure. Speaking of families, it's no secret that Baltimore's pint-size running back, Ray Rice, is a New Rochelle native son, so many in the local area would consider the Vince Lombardi Trophy going to Baltimore as their own victory by proxy, and a parade might not be out of the question either. Or in the immortal words of Edgar Allen Poe: Quoth the Raven, "Are you ready to rumble?!" In other sports news, I regret to report that the new and supposedly improved New York Rangers opened their shortened season at a woeful 0-2, while their arch-rival Pittsburgh Penguins leapt out to a sizzling 2-0 start, thanks not. A reasonable person might think that it's way too early for panic, with 46 games yet to play, but it can't be over-emphasized that the season is much too short for shilly-shallying, and those teams that are planning to be going anywhere, had better get going, and no time to waste. Fortunately, they managed to scratch out a win in their third try, so we were all relieved that at least they wouldn't wind up in May with a 0-48 record, and helping to prove that they still had some fight left in them yet. Since then, they've been playing at about a .500 pace, which is good enough for the basement in the Atlantic division, and already 4 points behind the leading team, and once again, thanks oh so very much not. Of course, things can always be worse, heaven knows, and if they were in the Central or Pacific, they'd already be 8 points behind the undefeated Chicago Blackhawks and San Jose Sharks, so we are reminded to be grateful for small favors, if nothing else. But in light of their much ballyhooed off-season maneuvers, and grandiose expectations for this year - however unrealistic they may have been - this is certainly not what their long-suffering fans hoped to see after the painful and bitter lockout finally came to an end. Oh, if only there was something to come along and make things all right again ..... ..... And just in time, we have the happy prospect of pitchers and catchers reporting to spring training camps beginning on February 11, which is right around the corner, but worlds away from the grim realities of the frozen north, where often is heard a discouraging word, and the skies are often cloudy all day, at least metaphorically speaking. I always say there's nothing like the rejuvenating vision of young men playing ball out in the sunshine as a tonic for what ails you, and I'm not just whistling Dixie, Casey Stengel. As much as I enjoy America's Pastime, I must admit that my favorite part is the pre-season, when every team has the same chance to scale the heights, and hope springs eternal for one and all. Of course, unlike the perennial front-running Yankees, there are no such lofty expectations for the junior franchise in town, and in fact, they managed to torpedo their chances even further with their harebrained scheme to trade away fan favorite R.A. Dickey to Toronto in the off-season after a career year in Flushing, where he won 20 games, despite an appalling record by the hapless Mets. So they never actually did have this most deserving Cy Young winner on their roster after winning the award, thus depriving the hometown faithful the opportunity to show their appreciation in the new season, and thereby giving everyone something to look forward to, even as the season might be spiraling out of control, as it usually does. One can only suppose that the team's muddle-headed management must have decided that if they were going to finish in the cellar anyway, they didn't need a Cy Young award winner to do it with, and I'll admit that it's hard to fight with logic like that. Heck, we could have done it without you, Branch Rickey. Alert readers may be wondering, if January has come and gone, and it's already time for the Super Bowl, whatever became of the annual congregational meeting at church, which had historically aligned itself with the big game every year, until the NFL pushed their annual donnybrook into February, and the church elected to keep theirs in January instead. Well, wonder no more, because we did in fact have the annual meeting last Sunday, which was well attended in spite of the weather, and important business was accomplished with a minimum of fuss, and even better, with absolutely no casualties. My personal feeling was that it was simply too cold to fight, as the fellowship hall was at a bracing 60 degrees, and everyone was bundled up in their coats and scarves, huddling over their coffee cups and fried chicken for whatever warmth could be found. Of course, in the bad old days, people came to the meeting to fight, and conducting church business was at best a distant afterthought. Back then, you couldn't make it cold enough for them not to fight, as they figured with enough name-calling and chair throwing, it would warm them right up anyway. This was much more amicable, with just a couple of hiccups along the way, and even the budget was passed with barely a murmur. Actually, my primary concern was that without having the Super Bowl on the same day to motivate people to hurry things along, and also there is no longer another congregation coming in behind us in the afternoon (having moved on to a different location a few months ago) I said to Bill that there was absolutely no incentive to wrap things up in a reasonable timeframe, and we might very well be there all night. Now, I wasn't really worried that a pillow fight would break out, but let's face it, everyone knows that Public Sleeping Day isn't until the end of February. Elle