2008 is starting out with a lot of TV watching for me. I hardly ever watch TV, but today I watched the Rose Parade live for 2 hours and 1/2 of the re-run – I love the Rose Parade!
I grew up in Pasadena and my family used to own a restaurant on Colorado Blvd. right on the parade route. We would go there in the morning and watch the parade from the roof. People offered to pay us to let them onto our property. I don’t think we let them. We collected flowers and other New Year paraphernalia that were left behind on the street afterwards.
When I was in college, my friends and I camped out on the street on New Year’s eve – yeah, one of those crazy people you see on TV. We were wrapped in sleeping bags, freezing our butts off. The parade was wasted on us though we had perfect front row seats on the sidewalk curb – I was half asleep and suffering with a pounding headache that was aggravated by the loud bands right next to us. Good ol’ days…it was fun.
Today I also watched 4 hours of the Rose Bowl football game – USC vs. Illinois. Sure, we cheered ‘SC, the home team and my son goes there and all, but after we scored 4 touchdowns, I felt sorry for Illinois and started cheering for them. There were some crazy turnovers that were fun to watch. USC was brutal in knocking the ball out of the opponent’s hands – I lose count of the number of fumbles. And the USC guy that made a show of doing a flip into the goal – that was great, though it looked like he got yelled at by coach Pete Carroll.
At the post game interview, the first thing that USC linebacker Rey Maualuga said was, “I want to thank God…” That was very good of him to acknowledge God on national television, but I feel uncomfortable when things like that are said. I don’t know that God takes sides when it comes to games. I think God sits back and enjoys the game like you and I do. Whichever team is the better team wins, without undue influence from God. But Maualuga could thank God that they were able to have a good coach and a good team and that they practiced hard. On the other hand, maybe God knows things behind the scenes that makes it necessary for one team to win, and he intervenes to make sure it happens. I’ll have to ask Him one day, but hopefully that opportunity won’t come too soon.
That’s probably the most TV I will watch for the rest of 2008.
Happy New Year!