Dickens on the Super Bowl

Last updated on: February 15, 2016 at 11:27 am by John Mark N. Reynolds

Dickens on the Super Bowl 2016-02-15T11:27:27-04:00 John Mark N. Reynolds

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Today is the birthday of the literary showman, Charles Dickens. He was one of the first authors to add performance to his writing . . . Dickens would perform his own work to riotous applause and profit. If he lived during the Super Bowl, he would have found a way to be part of the excitement.

This will mark the forty-third Super Bowl I can remember . . . and to celebrate the celebration I have allowed Dickens to comment on this year’s fun.

And so now modified for the season . . . a very Dickensian Super Bowl using the first lines of several novels:

The Time

Bay Area, Christmas Holidays lately over, and the NFL Commissioner sitting in 345 Park Avenue.

In these times of ours, though concerning the exact year the Roman L gave way to Arabic 50, a crew of dirty and disreputable appearance, with two main figures in it, floated on our screen, between HD, which is cheaper, and UHD which is costly, as a winter evening was closing in: Jim Nantz and Phil Simms.

On Our Hero

Whether Peyton shall turn out to be the hero of his last game, or whether that station will be held by anybody else these pages must show.

The first ray of light which illumines the gloom, and converts into a dazzling brilliancy that obscurity in which the earlier history of the public career of the immortal Peyton would appear to be involved, is derived from the perusal of the record book of the National Football League, which the announcers of these games feel the highest pleasure in having before the fans, somewhat endlessly as a proof of the careful attention, indefatigable , assiduity, and nice discrimination with which Peyton conducted the game.

The Scene

Among other public buildings in a certain town, which for many reason it will be prudent to refrain from mentioning, given the lack of organization, and to which I will assign no fictitious name, there is a stadium common to towns who gave up money, great or small: to wit, a stadium and in this stadium was born on a day and date which I need not trouble myself to repeat, inasmuch as the hype raised by the media makes it obvious, in this state of the business at all events, the item of mortality, whose name is prefixed to the head of this article: the Super Bowl.

The Gaming

It was the best of games, it was the worst of games, it was the age of Newton, it was the age of Peyton, it was the epoch of Panthers, it was the epoch of Broncos, it was the season of Defense, it was the season of no Offense, it was the first quarter of hope, it was the fourth quarter of despair, Carolina had everything before her, Denver had nothing before her, Newton and his team were all going direct to Heaven, until his line were all going direct the other way–in short, the end of the fourth period was so far like the 41st Super Bowl, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

The champions name being Denver, and team name Broncos, Nantz and Simms golden tongues could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Peyton. So, we talk about Peyton, and came to be about Peyton.

Though his arm was dead, to begin with.

He retires saying:

“It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.”

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