So endeth another World Cup...

I've mentioned before the great disparity of papers left behind by my parents when they died. My mother left a pretty extensive and disorganized collection of papers that included, inter alia, a number of my old elementary school scribblings, report cards, letters from camp, etc., as well as a fair representation of her correspondence with various parties from before I came into this world.

On the other hand, all of my stepfather's life before he met and married my mother was contained in a single red cardboard box about the size of a couple of packs of cigarettes. Inside were only photographs from various epochs of his life. There is writing on the backs of some of them, but it is either illegible or uninformative (how many guys named "George" are there in the world?).

In several of those, I see him as a member of a soccer team.

My stepdad was not a rabid soccer fan, but he was a fan. Back in the mid-60s, I remember he took me several times to the Polo Grounds in Manhattan to watch soccer matches. Then there were weekend forays to the soccer field on Randalls Island, under the Triborough Bridge that links Manhattan, Queens, and the Bronx.

What brought my stepdad to mind was the rather aggressive play I saw today during the finals of the World Cup. (From my easy vantage point in a sofa, I personally felt a couple of today's yellow cards were unwarranted, but then again, at least one of them - where a Dutch player solidly drop-kicked a Spanish player in the chest with his cleated foot - really should have been a red card from the get-go, in my opinion.)

The "meta" tactics during today's game reminded me of one particular game my stepdad took me to, which was played at Yankee Stadium, featuring the Santos club from Brazil (and the legendary Pele) and a club from Italy. I think it may have been Inter Milan. It was a night game, there were a lot of spectators in the stands, and the only thing I clearly remember from that game was the wild abandon with which some of the Italian players were going after Pele, with the apparent express purpose of crippling him for life.

I recall Pele was fouled several times, but Santos still won. I remember the score was lopsided, because my stepdad tapped me on the shoulder a few minutes before the game was to end and we headed out to the parking lot before the rush to get home got under way.

Today's score was a lot closer, 1-0, with the winning goal scored very near the end of the second 15-minute overtime session. I have to imagine that nobody on the Spanish team (nor, in particular, the fellow who scored the winning goal) is going to have to pick up any bar tabs for drinks in the foreseeable future.

In other news, I whittled down my remaining word count to less than 500, and am not going to push it. Tomorrow, we will be taking the grandkids out for lunch and I have a meeting with a dog trainer. I trust there will be plenty of time for everything.

Cheers...

An interesting proposal...

In a post today, Russian writer and journalist Dmitriy Glukhovsky (dglu) muses about Paul, the Psychic Octopus.

For those who have not been following the news (or who have only been following the political pages), this cephalopod, which lives in Germany (and which has already been the target of a PETA demand that it be "returned to the wild," but I digress...), accurately predicted the outcomes of all the German's team's games and the winner of the World Cup final.

Glukhovsky suggests:

Теперь, думаю, надо заставить его предсказать дату конца света.

И если он будет жрать мидий из коробочки с надписью "2012", значит, пора собирать тревожный чемоданчик.

Now, I think, it must be made to predict the date of the end of the world.

And if it eats the mussels from the box labeled "2012", that means it's time to pack a "bug-out" bag. (Translation mine.)

I suppose I could start in on how much I can't stand listening to shows where "experts" hold forth on every kind of 2012 idiocy, but I'll spare you all that and merely note that there's something about this suggestion that I find... amusing.

Cheers...