There was a line in the Philadelphia Inquirer this morning suggesting that for decades to come boys and girls in the Philadelphia area would be recounting where they were and who they were with on February 4, 2018. I was in my living room with Anne and the boys and a neighboring father and his two sons watching the game through my computer projector. 24 hours later we are all still glowing.
For a city that’s always been under the cloud of an insecurity complex the relief of winning a Super Bowl cannot be overstated. I listened to sports talk radio this morning for a couple of hours just to pick up the city’s vibe. The station actually asked listeners to call in and describe when they started crying their own tears of joy. One 65-year-old man told how he turned down an invitation with his friends to watch the game so he could go to the nursing home and hold his lifelong Eagle fan mother’s hand as the Eagles defeated the Patriots.
The umpire of our boys baseball league called me this morning just to talk about the game. He’s never called me to talk sports before. He just had to talk to somebody else. I was so touched.
The good feeling that Philadelphia is feeling right now is not going to go away for a long long time.
Schools have been canceled for Thursday so kids can attend the parade. They are thinking the crowd is going to be someplace around 2 1/2 million people. I have promised the boys we can go.
Anne had the good sense to document the scene for us. These dark and blurry snapshots will be treasured by two boys for decades to come— a simple photographic record taken by their mother of where they were and who they were with on February 4, 2018.
P.S. Thursday, February 8.
For years my boys have been asking me whether or not we would attend the Super Bowl parade if the Philadelphia Eagles ever one the big game. I casually promised that yes, of course, we would. I did have to put my mouth where my money is this week, however. Schools were canceled and the city essentially shut down for a crowd the mayor estimated could very well be close to 3 million people. (In the end, it appears that it was much less than that. Big number estimates appear to have scared some people away.)
After much planning and logistical analysis, we worked our way to the famous Rocky steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art this morning at 6AM. We could see almost nothing, we were compressed like sardines, but we were together and the slightly euphoric glow of an incredible sporting event bound the people in that friendly crowd— and it was friendly— in a way that I really feel will take years to dissipate.
Last night, before the parade, I wanted to make sure that everybody had realistic expectations about the trek into the city into the belly of the beast. I asked Teddy if he thought he was going to be high-fiving Nick Foles, the Super Bowl MVP. He looked at me like I was crazy. He knew that wasn’t going to happen. So I asked why it was that he wanted to go downtown and stand in a crowd where he couldn’t see anything. He wanted to go he said because “I want to be able to tell my kids that I was there.” I knew my goose was cooked and that we were getting up to go to the parade. He and his brother can both tell their kids they were there.
