Waiting...And Hoping...And Agonizing

Copyright © 2020

by Ralph F. Couey

It's 3:10 on a Thursday morning and I'm at work.  Eating lunch, by the way.  The world is fairly quiet, although everyone here in Hawai'i is keeping a close eye on the progress of the Corona Virus.  In three days, I will be parked in front of my television nervously waiting to see how the first Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl in a half-century will play out.  

Sometime, somewhere on a battlefield, some grizzled old soldier opined, "The worst part of a battle is waiting for it to begin."  Anyone who has been in combat knows what that means. Once the battle is joined, you know what to do, and in a way, what to expect.  Waiting, however, is empty time when a person's mind is given free rein to entertain all the possibilities, both the good and bad.  I understand that this is just a football game (albeit a very important one) and nobody is going to die.  Nevertheless, as the days count down, I am nervously exploring all the outcomes that could happen.  You have to understand that, as Chiefs fans, we must prepare emotionally for the worst.  This team's playoff history is a long list of unbelievable ways to lose a football game.  Now we find ourselves on the brink of the biggest contest in 50 years, still haunted by those memories.

As the two teams have been compared by experts, it's amazing how the interplay of strengths and weaknesses render the 49ers and Chiefs remarkably even.  The Chiefs are favored, but only by a point-and-a-half, a razor-thin margin that reflects the universal analyses.  I won't go over those discussions here, but there is a wild card, the one player upon whom the final score will turn.

Patrick Mahomes II is...indescribably good at what he does.  He has a cannon for an arm that gives him the ability to put a ball on a dime 40 or 50 yards downfield.  And if all the receivers are covered, he turns to his feet.  In the last month, the world has watched as he brought his team back from a 24 point deficit with seven consecutive touchdowns. A week later, he brought them back from a 10 point lag to a decisive victory.  Clearly, no lead is safe.  It would be easy to assume that the magic will happen again, and after 60 minutes of hard, bruising football, the Chiefs will hoist the Lombardi Trophy into the warm Miami sky.  

Dreams and Destiny

Kansascity.com

Copyright © 2020

by Ralph F. Couey

Well, it's finally happened.  And as far as anybody knows, as cold as it was today at Arrowhead, Hell didn't freeze over.  The Kansas City Chiefs after 50 years of epically bitter disappointments are going to the Super Bowl.  I look at those words and I think back to this game, and what I feel is a patent sense of unreality, as if I could suddenly wake up and discover that it was all a dream.  But it wasn't a dream.  It actually happened. In two weeks, the Chiefs will climb into the ring with the San Francisco 49ers for a knock-down drag-out to decide which team will wear the crown.

In my last post, I wrote about how difficult its been to be a Chiefs fan over the years. There have been some pretty good teams, a few dominant ones, and several biblically horrible teams.  Along the way there have been playoff losses that simply defied rational explanation.  For the fans, it has been five decades of waiting.  Now the waiting is over.

I know that in a few days, the shock will wear off and I will embrace the reality.  I think we were all emotionally ready for the worst while hoping for the best.  Now comes the two weeks of building anticipation until the big day.  I haven't thought much about the Chiefs opponent except the feeling that given what has happened in the past two games, that even if behind, there's no safe lead against this team.  I know that Garoppolo and company are an excellent team with their own sets of assets and weapons.  But as foolish as the term may sound, I feel that this version of the Chiefs have a destiny.

And that destiny will be fulfilled.

The Mental Illness of Being a Chiefs Fan

© 2020 Yahoo Sports

Copyright © 2020

by Ralph F. Couey

I've resisted the temptation to write about my team, the Kansas City Chiefs, mainly because like the now-famous Chiefs fan Bad Luck Chuck (who fled Arrowhead with the Chiefs down 24-0 because he was convinced he had jinxed them) I'm reluctant to tweak the forces of fate.  Especially with a trip to the Super Bowl for the first time in 50 years on the line.  

I get that this sounds highly irrational.  And it probably is.  But you need to have experienced the unique heartbreak that is a part of every Chiefs fan.  One example of dark humor -- Do you know how a medical examiner knows that there's a Chiefs fan on their table?  Callous around the heart.  When your team loses after gaining a 28-point lead in one game, or loses another when the enemy quarterback throws a touchdown pass...to himself...well, you get the idea.  When you're balanced on the edge of a razor blade, you tend to not want to rock the boat.

The thing is, this is a different Chiefs team, one with no residual memory of the past.  Their epic comeback last week demonstrates clearly that they are unburdened by any other thought than the absolute certainty that whatever the game, whatever the situation, they can and will win.  While the million or so members of Chiefs Nation remain on tenterhooks, the 53 men who really matter in this equation reside comfortably in the beachhouse of absolute confidence.

There is no foolish arrogance here.  They know all about that human bulldozer the world knows as Derrick Henry.  They are also aware that the last time these teams met, the Chiefs came up short.  But they also know that six of their starters were sidelined with injuries.  Their quarterback, the reigning MVP, was in his first game back after a gruesome knee injury and was just a little bit tentative.  Now, everyone's healthy, except for Chris Jones (still unknown if he'll play) and Travis Kelce (tweaked hammy).  Oh yeah, and Juan Thornhill who's gone for the year.  But even with those deficits, this team is playing better than it has all year, and it can be argued, better even than last year.  The defense is now one of the best in the NFL, and suddenly the task of containing Henry seems less insurmountable.  If that happens, and the Chiefs offense races to an early big lead, than the Titans have to start throwing the ball, a task at which they are distinctly ordinary.  Vegas installed the Chiefs as a 7.5 point favorite, which in a playoff game is outrageously confident.  That in itself kind of bodes unwell, since the Chiefs have a regrettable tendency to shorten those odds on game day.  

We'll Always Have Tatooine

Poster from the first movie

© 1976 Lucasfilm

Copyright © 2020

by Ralph F. Couey

There had been nothing like it before, and a long time will pass before there'll be anything like it again.  Almost 44 years ago on May 25, 1977, a different kind of movie landed in theaters across the land.  It was called Star Wars, a space opera that took place "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away."  The story had been brought to life by George Lucas, a bespectacled filmmaker whose claim to fame was the nostalgia-inducing "American Graffiti."  Foiled in trying to bring Flash Gordon to the big screen, he essentially created an entirely new universe, complete with heroes, villains, alien planetscapes and their indigenous creatures.  The special effects were spectacular in an age when most studios were still hanging cardboard models from wires.  

Mostly though, it was the story.  1977 was one of those years that filled a gap between other, more rambunctious times.  The year before had been the bicentennial. Before that were the years of Watergate and the final humiliating retreat from Vietnam.  1977 was the beginning of a wildly inflational economy that eventually led to the spiritual malaise of the Carter years, partially obscured by the glitzy disco era..  In some ways, Star Wars was the event that injected air back into the social, cultural, and political vacuum.  

To say that Star Wars captured the imagination is to wallow in understatement.  People not only went once to see the film, but multiple times.  Including your humble correspondent who is only a little embarrassed to admit seeing the movie (by count) some 23 times.  While it was in the theaters.  Most importantly, the film brought hope to a time mired in hopelessness.  It showed us that heroes could be anyone, even an orphaned boy on a remote desert planet.

Honoring Those Who Stood and Fought

Part of the role of honor,

USS Arizona Memorial

Copyright © 2020

by Ralph F. Couey

There are places in the world where great battles were fought and people died.  These places are visited by those who came after, seeking a connection to the past. Almost always in these places there exists an air of respectful silence, almost as if people were listening for the sounds of voices from the departed.  Gettysburg is such a place, as is the Flight 93 National Monument.  But the place where I've heard that loud silence clearest is aboard the USS Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor.

Arizona was the thirty-ninth battleship constructed for the U. S. Navy.  Her keel was laid down in March 2013 and the ship was launched about a year later.  Her main battery consisted of twelve 14-inch guns allotted to four triple turrets.  She weighed in at just under 30,000 tons and had a top speed of 21 knots.  Arizona was modified in 1929 and by 1941 was one of the most powerful ships afloat, a full member of the battleline of the U.S. Pacific Fleet.  Had she ever been called upon to perform her designed function, there is little doubt that she and her crew would have comported themselves admirably.  

Warships are designed to put to sea and stay there for extended periods of time.  There they are maneuverable and able to take the fight to whatever enemy presents itself.  But for Arizona and her steel-clad sisters, their first action caught them tied to a quay, boilers cold, guns silent.  

On a bright, sunny, and peaceful Sunday morning in early December 1941, 340 Japanese carrier aircraft broke the quiet of that morning.  At 7:55 AM, they swung into their attacks.  Within minutes, eight battleships and numerous other vessels were sinking and burning.  In those first few minutes, 10 Japanese bombers flew over Battleship 39.  They were carrying armor-piercing shells weighing some 1,800 pounds converted for air drops.  Arizona was hit by four bombs, the first three doing slight damage.  The fourth hit the ship on the starboard side beside turret number one.  What happened next is still open to conjecture.  The popular notion is that the bomb penetrated the armor deck near turret 2 and detonated in a space where black powder was stored, contrary to regulations.  There are other suppositions, but what was important was the result.  Seven seconds after the shell hit, Arizona erupted in an explosion that could only be called volcanic.  The ship rose in the water, broke in half, and sank immediately.  She burned for two days.