Super Bowl Memories

Super Bowl Day. We have been invited to a Super Bowl Party. It is the first one I have been to since my Mom used to have them. Bob just liked to stay at home and watch the game so we never went anywhere to watch it. Oh, maybe once we went to the Rainbow Casino to a football party when we lived in Wendover but I don't think it was the Super Bowl. We are going today because Micah does not have TV. My favorite part of the Super Bowl usually is the commercials unless the Broncos or Green Bay Packers are playing and that doesn't happen too often!

When Mom had her parties or even just when the family was watching the game we always had a pool. We drew cards from a deck. I think it went like this ( but someone will need to correct me if I'm wrong): At the end of each quarter we took the score of the team that was ahead. Whoever had the number of the score (if it was 1 digit) or the last number of a 2 digit score won. I haven't done it in so long I'm not sure exactly how it went. I guess I didn't win that often! Mom would call all her relatives who liked football and included tham in the pool along with the neighbors who usually were there to watch too. One time we were in Florida at Mom's and my friend Annie was there too. She had neighbors who happened to be in Ft. Lauderdale so they came over for the game too. I remember that her friend really got into the pool part and he and Mom had a bunch of side bets that went on too. Annie and I just laughed because they were so funny about their betting. Mom tried to get us all into the betting spirit but we didn't know enough about football to even know what they were talking about. Mom had a rule about her football pools. You had to watch the game and be interested in football or you couldn't get in it. She didn't want someone to win that didn't even know what the score was! That usually eliminated Lynn and Bill because they weren't that interested and usually did something else during the game.

The commercials are usually good and I like to see what they are. I'm thinking at a party I'm not going to get to see them, though. There will be too much visiting and getting of refreshments. Maybe I'm wrong, we'll see. I think the Budweiser commercials are some of the best. I even saw them filming one of those commercials with the Clydesdales when I was in Boston a long time ago. Doritos has some funny ones. Then there are usually some really funny ones by other products but I don't remember them now. I suppose they will all be on Youtube so I can see them after the game.

My last memory is the time we actually went to the Super Bowl! A good friend of ours in Denver who was a doctor and owned a ranch neighboring ours had season tickets for the Broncos. He had 4 tickets to all home games and we had gone with them several times to see the Broncos. This particular year, we were at the stock show in Denver when the Super Bowl was going to happen. It was the very first time the Broncos went to it and it was in New Orleans. Dr. Granberg was so excited! AND he invited us to go with him! We flew out early Sunday morning. We had quite a bit of time to kill before the game but the package deal we went on just took us to the Superdome so we spent the whole afternoon there with thousands of other fans. It was very exciting and fun. The Broncos played the Dallas Cowboys and got soundly beaten but the experience was great. After the game we had a very scary experience. Everyone was exiting at once and they had long escalators to go down to the ground floor. As I got on the escalator I could look down and see that the whole lobby was full of people and there was nowhere to go when you got to the bottom. It was crowding up tighter and tighter with nowhere to get off! I was beginning to panic a bit. We got down and squeezed out to one side but I was sure someone was going to get hurt very soon. Luckily they turned off the escalators right after we got off but it was scary!

The next part was not scary but not fun either. The bus took us to the airport where our plane was supposed to leave in about an hour. That did NOT happen. Remember, Dallas was playing? Well, many people flew in on their private jets and they had them parked all over the big runways for the game. All those small jets had to take off before we could go. There were many big commercial jets in there from Denver and we all had to wait. There was no food left nor anything to drink either. It was wall to wall people, many sitting or trying to sleep on the floor since there was nowhere to sit. We finally got back to Denver about 5 AM. Almost 24 hours after we had left. It was a great time but I'm not sure I would want to do it again. You get a much better view of the game on your TV! However you can't experience the atmosphere and excitement of the game in your living room!

I think I will root for New Orleans since they have never been to a Super Bowl in their history and I like an underdog team! Have a great time everyone and enjoy the game and commercials!