Today is my Dad’s birthday. I am sitting here this morning wishing him a happy one. My dear wife, Carrie, and I are out of town at the moment. We will be back home tomorrow afternoon and I will be able to offer a more proper birthday greeting to my Dad then.
I am fortunate. I have some friends that can’t call up their Dad and tell him happy birthday, let alone sit down with a couple televisions going and watch the January 1 Bowl games with. We always have a good time. My Dad is one of the good guys.
So I bid you HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!
Like me, my Dad is not too happy with what has happened to Peyton Manning here of late. Peyton has been accused of using HGH ( Human Growth Hormone, whatever that is…I have not looked it up and I am not going to) to help aid his healing from whatever ailments he has had that have held up his progress as the best quarterback we have ever seen.
As I said, I don’t know what human growth hormone is. I have an idea or two based on context clues. The truth of the matter is I really don’t care. I really don’t. There are greater tragedies than HGH to spend time worrying about.
The Peyton issue here is symptomatic of a far greater malaise. Too much information. The National Football League is running these gushy “football is family” ads and personally, I think they are softy-influenced ads in the wake of all the concussion issues that have plagued the league of late. The problem is that the NFL is part of the problem. Like every other hackneyed 24 hour news-let’s look for the problem and exploit someone no matter what the consequence- network, the NFL is right with them. There is NFL overkill on the NFL NETWORK. Their own channel spends time second guessing coaches and questioning players motives…mostly from the voices of former players…and it is all pretty negative in the end.
This type of journalism and this type of reporting leads to lousy things. Want sweet and sappy, it is there in the commercial. Want the National Anthem shown before prime time NFL football games? The NFL will give it to you thanks to an Insurance Company buying the time that provides the song to be shown. The league would not share the country’s song, if it were not being paid for it.
And now we have Peyton thrown under the bus and pinheads with the attention span of gnats will link him forever with HGH whether they are right or wrong. One little piss ant can taint one great man’s career forever. This is a direct correlation to the way “news” is no longer “news” but rumor turned into “news”. That is what we are dealing with today. Be it facebook or CNN or FOx News or the NFL Network. We don’t look for news. We look for dirt. And then, when something that is honest to God terrible happens to our country or to our people, folks don’t know what to make if it. They don’t know how to react. Their insular ideas of “news” get lost somewhere and they are like deer staring into reality’s headlights. Their pea-brains, like the deer, don’t know which way to turn.
This is why we have Donald Trump as a presidential candidate. This guy is a clown. That is what people want. Folks are so used to bashing each other that they are taken with Trump and want to run with him and see how many people they can piss off in the process. Welcome to America 2016. Hope. Change. Yes We Can (like that or not) has been replaced by the deplorable Rant. Run Down. Just Watch Me. And that is dangerous. That is what we get thanks to facebook, Fox News, CNN, and whatever entity can be held up and hidden behind.
Peyton Manning is an Indiana icon. Sitting here near the Hoosier capitol city, I can tell you his influence has resonated and continues to do so. How? By Peyton doing good works and not looking for cameras to promote himself in the process. A hospital is named for him. His bank account is significantly smaller because he wants to help people. There is the matter of Lucas Oil Stadium. Have you seen it? The place is huge. It reminds me of Peyton Manning’s heart for football and his heart for being a good person. The House that Peyton built. Peyton Manning made football in this state. Ask anyone who’s been around the high school game for thirty years and ask them about attendance and interest before Peyton Manning got to Indiana and placed the game on the map like it had not been in the sixteen years before Manning was an Indianapolis Colt.
Somehow, thanks to the twisted place in time we live, a report from a less than credible source is allowed to be made public…allowed to find its way to cell phones in short order…allowed to be made news on an NFL Network…allowed to permeate simple minds that look for the worst in someone instead of the best….allowed to bring grief to a family that has meant more to the game of football than any other we have ever known and… that is okay? Wow. That is some scary stuff.
Speaking the Rights…
Danny Johnson