If you think about it, the Super Bowl isn't really super

I am so old I remember the first Super Bowl played in 1966 in Los Angeles with about 70,000 in attendance. That was 46 years ago and I was very young. I think I was in the first grade. Maybe.

Tickets cost $12. The NFL and AFL were combatants and this was a playoff of the two conferences. The teams were the Green Bay Packers coached by the venerable Vince Lombardi and the Kansas City Chiefs coached by Hank Stram.

I was expecting something spectacular, astonishing, different, super. It turned out to be just another game of grunting, groaning, gouging, griping, grumbling, grinding, growling and gripping. Bart Starr was the quarterback for the Packers who scored 35. Len Dawson was QB for the Chiefs and they scored 10. BW even remembers the uneven score and how the game turned out to be just another game.

Let's sit in the big rocking chair on the front porch and use etymology to look at the word Super. Now, it could mean we are going to court to "sue" Per whoever he is for a crime like dangling a participle or splitting an infinitive. Or it could mean a person who eats soup -- "super" -- frequently or a person who has already "et" a "mology" whatever that is. That sounds like you could get gas from "eting a mology." Or it could mean something that is unusual, spectacular, much better than normal, at a higher level, unexpected greatness.

We use the word super when we speak of Superman who is faster than a speeding bullet, stronger than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings with a single bound. But I remember in the opening scenes of the TV show he ducked to avoid being hit by a hand gun thrown by a "Nogoodnick." Why?

Super Glue is a mastic that used to advertise by gluing a metal safety helmet to the goal post of a football field with a man dangling from it. Now that is super. However, I tried that with BW and her Red Hat and it would not hold her.

A Supernova is a star that has reached the end of its existence and goes out in an explosive blaze of brilliant light ending in darkness. It ceases to exist sort of like maybe Madonna will do after the Super Bowl in Indy.

Supernatural is something that defies normality. It is unusual and it could be frightening. We know it is not natural because it is super natural -- above and beyond that which we call normal, usual and natural. It could be a volcano; a huge wave in the ocean; a beast that roams the woods at night screaming things like, "I am number one" or "I am king of the night and you are not," or "bring me some figgy pudding." Or super natural could mean Dolly Parton's hair and her other enhancements if you know what I mean.

I have concluded that the Super Bowl is merely an over-hyped cash cow to make money for TV, the owners, players, coaches and very few people in the community where the game is played. Tickets today cost $2K up to $1.1M. Unbelievable.

Larry grew up north of Calvertville on a farm and graduated from Worthington High School and Indiana State University. He can be reached at Goosecrick@aol.com or (317) 839-7656.