The Superbowl

Now, it may come down to the simple fact that we’re immigrants. We moved here from the UK in August of 1994, leaving me old enough to remember scraps of my life over there. My dad (despite his being the reason for the move) has never properly accepted himself as American. We’ve all still got our green cards (which are pinkish, btw) and none of us has applied for citizenship yet. With a green card you only lose two privileges of being a citizen – you can’t vote and you can’t serve on a jury*. Other than that, you’re as good as a citizen. Anyway, my dad still refers to himself as Scottish and you get the distinct feeling that if he could have the same job in Scotland (I don’t think he could) that he’d move back in a heartbeat. Mom’s a different story; she’s accepted this place.

Regardless, we’re immigrants. First-generation immigrants.

And I don’t have anyone in the family who played high-school football. My little brother just hit his growth spurt and he’s almost all the way to a lofty five feet. Did I mention he started ninth grade this year? Yeah. He’s also about 80 pounds. We joke that he should go out for the football team – as the ball. My dad obviously never played American football over in the UK. (Funny enough, my little sister plays Powder Puff football at her university and she IS a rabid football fan).

I seem to be rambling. What I was getting at is that the Superbowl, for us, tends to be just that one Sunday when nothing else is on except the football. We’re from Philly, so we’re basically obligated to be rabid Eagles fans, and to an extent, we are. But the Eagles aren’t in this year (come on, seriously, it has got to be our fking time eventually) and we’ve got no personal stake in the Colts or Saints.

George R R Martin blogged about the superbowl today (and it’s essentially the reason that I’m blogging right now), and said, “Forget Independence Day. SuperBowl Sunday is America’s real national holiday.”

Does that make us not Americans? 😦

(*Oh, yeah, there’s one more thing that you can’t do with a green card: work for the federal government. As someone with a degree in political science, that’s pretty much the first route to go. And I can’t work for the British government, either – they’ve got a residency requirement of five years. And that’s assuming I could pass a background check.)