A Super Bowl!

Like most of our fellow citizens, I attended a Super Bowl party last Sunday.

It was a fine party.  Full of family and friends and neighbors, a little booze, some good food and splendiferous jocularity.  But what it mostly meant to me was that the last time I watched the Kansas City Chiefs in a Super Bowl was exactly 50 years ago.

That's when they met the Minnesota Vikings In Super Bowl 4.  When my fellow party-goers learned that fact, I was asked what I'd paid for my ticket.  The amount was $112.00.  Annnd, I was seated four rows up from the field and about 30 feet from the 50 yard-line.  Oh yeah, and Bill Boyd, the original Hopalong Cassidy, famed black and white western TV star, was seated directly behind me.  Behind ME! 

That amount compares very favorably with the average cost of a ticket to this year's Super Bowl; $7,134.00!  And that would have probably gotten you seated so far back in nose bleed alley you'd need oxygen, and probably be better off watching the game in the bar.

Oh yeah, and speaking of the bar, the cost of a 16 oz. bottle of beer at this year's game was...ready for it?...$15.00.  A 16 oz. soft drink?  $14.00.  A pretzel?  $10.00!  The cheapest thing on the concession stand menu was an extra cup of cheese sauce for that pretzel at $3.00.  As I recall, a Coke at Super Bowl 4 was $1.00.  And I pissed and moaned all day long about that.  

But as I recall I got free parking.  Miami last Sunday?  Private parking a half-mile from the Hard Rock Stadium was going out for a cool $120.00!  As I'm fond of saying, I already bought my car; I don't want to have to buy it again...

I stopped complaining about prices back then when Lenny Dawson, famed Chiefs Hall-of-Fame quarterback, set the-then NFL record in that game for passes completed in a row at 16!  And Jan Stenerud, Hall-of-Fame field goal kicker helped him outscore the Vikes 24 - 7.  BTW, they were a 13-point underdog.

Oh yeah, a bit later I applied for a loan at a K.C. bank and my loan officer was...Jan Stenerud.  Second careers were the norm back then, as NFL retirement packages were not nearly so rich as today.  Nor were the salaries... 

Anyway, I was supreeeeemely happy with this year's game results.  I got my money's worth.  Which was, ummm, zero.  But the folks who bought their way into Miami and the SB shenanigans over the weekend dropped a bundle!  And it seems to me that this very factoid proves that America is in a good place.  If people can redistribute their own wealth in such a manner it seems to me we don't need help from a Bernie or a Liz or a Joe telling us how.  Or forcing us to do so in a way they deem appropriate.  

According to the NBA Commissioner, he expected more than $1 Billion Dollars to be spent on Sunday's game.  I can see how that might be true.  That's a $Billion Dollars willingly redistributed from the "haves" to the "have not's."  (Or more likely, to other "haves.")

On my way out the figurative door, it struck me that at least the San Fran 49ers got to avoid dodging piles of human excrement for a week.  The Streets of Miami are a lot cleaner than the Streets of San Francisco...