A couple of weeks ago the roof caved in on the stadium in Minnesota. Now, I’m not an engineer or anything. As a matter of fact, I flunked the egg test in school. I don’t even know if they do it anymore. The teacher would have you build a contraption around an egg. Then the egg would be dropped from a certain height. Your egg was supposed to hit the hard floor without cracking. My egg didn’t crack. But I still flunked. Apparently my teacher didn’t have a sense of humor. I took a beach towel and wrapped the egg in it. The egg held up just fine. The teacher said I didn’t follow the parameters. I told her that I thought her test was silly and useless. I explained that I couldn’t think of a situation where I would want the egg in a shell. They taste better with the shell off. If I remember right, I was sent to the office for that one. But I digress. I’m not engineer, as I said earlier, but I gotta be honest with you…who came up with the idea to put an inflatable roof on a stadium? Last time I checked, snow and ice is made of water. And water can get heavy. You need a real structure to handle the stuff. But I’m glad the roof caved in. Now the Vikings are going to play outside in the ice and snow…the way football was meant to be played. I long for the days of ice-encrusted helmets, snow stuck to beards of men on the battle field. I miss the days of those Minnesota fans with their Viking helmets with the horns sticking out bare-chested in sub-zero weather. That’s entertainment. That’s sports. I told you that to tell you this. I miss the days when people just went out to exercise, ride a bike or go for a jog. Hell, I know I’m in the business. I’m not stupid. But it always seems like someone is “training” for something. We used to go out and ride bikes on the weekends. It didn’t matter if it was in the mountains or on a flat course. Now when I get together with the gang, they need to get some hills in. Everyone is going in a different direction. It’s like trying to herd lizards. Nobody takes a five-mile jog anymore. They have to run the 10K. They have to have their Garmin on their wrist, and their heart monitor. Then they have to rush home and plug those Garmins into their computers. What happened to training by heart? You just go out and do it. Even when I walk into the gym to do a little weight lifting, nobody just throws the iron around anymore. It’s very specific. They all seem to have some bottle or jug with a neon colored mix inside that they sip on between sets. Sure, fitness is alive and well in this country. Or is it? For every one of the health zealots, we have 100 times more people fatter than ever. What’s my point? I don’t have one. This is rhetoric. It’s food for thought.
