Today is the day for Super bowl LVI, which means 56 and I am happy. I’d certainly like to tell you that I am a walking catalogue and reservoir of information regarding the Roman Numeral system, but I am not. So, I looked it up LVI because my skill with this ancient numeric system stopped at 39 (XXXIX). Since then, it’s been a head scratcher so I’ve just taken the NFL and the television networks word for it.
When we covered the Roman Numeral system in elementary school I was amazed to figure out that an X equaled 10, a V equals 5 and I equals 1. I was even more amazed that I understood it. It was all so simple, I even kept up the torrid mathematical pace when they started throwing the I before the V and telling me it stood for 4, I was a genius. I remember actually patting myself on the back for being able to decipher IX as equaling 9 and IV equals 4.
When I discovered that i was a Roman Numeral Prodigy, I proclaimed, “Mom, I believe I will have Dad’s big piece of chicken tonight, I’ve got this foreign math thing licked!” I was certain back then when I aced the test on Roman Numerals that I was perhaps born in the wrong country. Perhaps I was destined to be a great mathematician in Italy but it never panned out. Instead, the American school system dropped Algebra on my desk and I quickly threw in the mathematical towel. Which way is it to wood shop again?
As a refresher course, I looked up this Roman numeral system on the internet and what I now understand is that even after the Roman empire fell around 395 A.D., long after Nero chirped away on his fiddle, this numeric system continued to be used as the standard numeric system for grocery shopping and house numbers and such until around 1300 A.D. and then everyone, and I mean everyone stopped using it, except the NFL.
Like Disco music, bell-bottoms pants, 8 track tapes, aqua-net hair spray, Tiny Tim and the Ford Pinto, all good things must come to an end. So, I guess I am really not that perplexed as to why the NFL continues to tout such reverence for a numeric system that fizzled out over 700 years ago when it took nearly 1000 years for civilization to realize that their math system didn’t have a zero anywhere in it. I’d love to meet the person that brought that to everyone’s attention. I would imagine it went something like this;
“Say Bob, I was thinkin about buying me a new chariot at a cost XI”, Bob is listening like he always does but he continues to chisel away at the selfie he is making for his wife, “so, me and the misses got XIII tucked away but I still owe you II for the sandals you sold me on credit”, Bob stops chiseling because he’d like to be repaid for his sandals and listens more intently, “how much, after all that, do you think I’d have left over?” Now from past blogs, we know that Bob is a man of few words so his reply is simply, “ZERO.” That simple “zero” answer had to be like actually meeting one of the Martians that built the pyramids. “Get out a town with that fancy math Mr. fancy pants Bob!”
Don’t get me wrong, I love football, I really do, especially now that the fans are allowed back into the stadium to cheer for their team and brawl with the fans from the other. I think I am mostly grateful that there is no fake crowd noise being piped into my TV.
Yes sir, Football is the ultimate gladiator sport. That’s why this makes it interesting that a sport built on the premise that large men, men in very tight clothing, climb into a large arena, then run at an incredible rate of speed, protected only by some foam padding and hard helmets, intentionally smash into each other with the hopes of disabling one or both, enthusiastically embrace such an antiquated math system, never mind… I talked that answer right out of me. To quote my favorite roman era gladiator Gluteus Maximus, (I forgot his roman name) played by Russell Crowe…”Are you not entertained!!”
Here’s to a great game today, cheers to the Ram’s and Bengals for maintaining your health through all that smashing into each other and what not. I wish you both well! You’ve earned the right to let 100 million ((CMXCIX)) (CMXCIX) CMXCIX) people watch you pummel the man in front of you with the hopes of leaving him senseless and dazed on the sideline.
I figure if the good lord is willing, I don’t start smoking again, I avoid greasy foods, ease up on the bud light and learn how to apply blue hair dye and finally get comfortable with my right turn signal permanently stuck in the “on” position, I’ve got at least 30 more Super bowls to watch which would be Super bowl 86, which is LXXXVI if you are keeping up. Since my beloved Cowboys are in a 26 year (XXVI) Super bowl appearance drought, GO RAMGALS! Enjoy the game.