Season's end? Which "local" team's season?

Yesterday and today we enjoyed March-like weather, including pervasive fog. Tomorrow, and for the near future, it's back to and maybe below typical North Country late Winter conditions, cold and snowy, with maybe a bit of freezing drizzle thrown in. The good news is that, today at least, the Better Half reported hearing chickadees singing their Spring "fee-bee" call. This was the first time this year the call has been heard by anyone in our household.

chickadees now sing of Spring

Photo by J. Harrington

Effective tomorrow, football season will be over until about August. (The Minnesota Vikings season ended last year, on December 30.) Although we're originally from Massachusetts, one of six New England states, we found it hard, while living back East, to identify with a team named for six states. The original Boston Patriots offered the kind of local identity we could relate to. (See, we're back on that "what's local?" theme again.) If we were to turn it around, we might be inclined to suggest that Minnesota is far from a coherent identity. The state contains at least four major biomes. More than one fifth of the entire state's population lives in just one of its 87 counties: Minnesota - 2017 - 5.6 million; Hennepin County - 2017 - 1.2 million. Massachusetts had a 2017 population of 6.9 million in a state a little more than 10% of Minnesota's size.

In Massachusetts, other non NFL local professional sports teams are:

• Boston Celtics (basketball)
• Boston Bruins (hockey)
• Boston Red Sox (baseball), and
• New England Revolution (soccer)

As we recall, from many years ago when we lived there, Boston fans were more enthusiastic (rabid?) than New England fans. But, in those days, there was no local soccer team. How much do professional sports really contribute to a local identity? That's a good question. "What comprises a local identity?" may be an even better one.

Football

By Louis Jenkins

I take the snap from the center, fake to the right, fade back...

I've got protection. I've got a receiver open downfield...

What the hell is this? This isn't a football, it's a shoe, a man's

brown leather oxford. A cousin to a football maybe, the same

skin, but not the same, a thing made for the earth, not the air.

I realize that this is a world where anything is possible and I

understand, also, that one often has to make do with what one

has. I have eaten pancakes, for instance, with that clear corn

syrup on them because there was no maple syrup and they

weren't very good. Well, anyway, this is different. (My man

downfield is waving his arms.) One has certain responsibilities,

one has to make choices. This isn't right and I'm not going

to throw it.

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