See the differences?

This year I am understanding football more. But not CFL. I have had a drop in my interest in CFL and NHL that I am finding a little disconcerting but, frankly, it's not my fault. No doubt the current national NuGov's determination to undo Canada is a big part of it. Heck, if your leader of the land is taking his speaking notes on the nature of the nation from Jacques Parizeau, finding only resources for the North, leaving the parts of the land below Baker Lake to fend for themselves as cultures. If you don't believe it, I invite you to note that a statement like the following is mainly met with scoffery from most bloggy gits and their masters the newpaper column wags these days:

Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty said as the premiers wrapped up their annual meeting[:] "I'm a proud Ontarian. Proud to lead this province. But I'm a proud Canadian first."

Being "Canadian" is now definitely laughable in this swing of the pendulum and, frankly, national standards in pro hockey and three-down football can only be part of the problem given they support the idea of Canada having actual inherent integrity that can't be derided into irrelevance by our ruling and chattering classes.

So, it is with some wide eyed wonder that one realizes there is another way, that pride in one's cultural artifacts can be organic and not left to the self-proclaimed wise and Federal politicians to define through derision and intentional neglect. People themselves can love a thing and make it part of what it means to be oneself and part of an us. I have enriched my appreciation of this through the writings of Bob Cowser Jr., a professor at nearby St. Lawrence College, home of the best value in Easlakian hockey. I picked up a copy of his book Dream Season about his year as a member of the Watertown Red and Black of the Empire Football League when we were over at the first of the summer. Enjoying it, I then picked up his set of personal essays called Scorekeeping about growing up uncomfortably in small town Tennessee. I can't recommend them highly enough as together I think they are the greatest expressions of what "being a guy" means. They are also incredible well written and fairly eviscerating in their personal honesty. Start with the football book even though the essays speak to the earlier chronological time in his life. I think there is a deeper drilling down into experience happening from the one book to the other. Note: buy these books.

Part of that experience are the seasons of sport, and the fact that in that cycle autumn is football season and that it runs from September to Christmas (though it extends now into February) and not June to November. Just as winter ends with baseball, summer ends with football. Hmmm...you know, a double header might be possible on September 15th with an afternoon of Illinois at Syracuse followed by an evening Red and White game against Scranton [Ed.: Scranton...pittuie!!!] an hour north at Watertown. And, no doubt, BBQ between.