Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let Cowboy Fans Live in the Past

[Seltzer]

Stories are the basic unit of human understanding as years of data-based psychological research backs up.  People make sense out of their lives by the stories they tell others and the stories they tell themselves.

 Indeed, the greatest life stories that people tell are very well-rehearsed as other people naturally want to listen.  But stories are the by-product of past human experience. 

And as such, no one likes to hear the same story twice. Even great stories can be boring the second time around.

And nowhere within the American sports world is the story more well-rehearsed and yet more worn-out than the retelling of the Dallas Cowboys “Glory Years.”

Those supposed magical years, well before the advent of the now nearly twenty year-old 21^st Century, before Monica’s blue dress and the 2000 recount and the 18 year old War on Terror and the advent of HDTV and social media.  A simpler time,  when Budweiser was still the King of Beers and the Cowboys still mattered.

And nowhere are those stories told better than by the Narrator-in-Chief and perpetual GM of nostalgia, Jerral Wayne Jones.  The same tired stories he has and continues to sell and used to bilk millions out of the lowest-IQ fans probably on Earth, and at least in the Western Hemisphere.

The same stories retold by your down-on-his-luck neighbor in Gastonia, as he removes his sweat-brined MAGA hat for a Cowboys Starter hat he picked up in early 1997, the same one he spilled mustard on at Ericsson Stadium before he watched the upstarts from Carolina put the final nails in the coffin of Cowboys relevance.

The same stories that are retold by the slow kid down the street who has wanted to earn approval from his abusive, alcoholic father so badly that he got matching Blue Star tattoos on his eighteenth birthday.  The same poor kid who hid out in his room for days in early 2004 to escape his dad’s wrath when Steve Smith wrecked the Dallas secondary and started the track to send Bill Parcells back into retirement.

The same stories retold by the thrice-divorced mother of five, as she tried desperately to lock down her coworker from the tire factory.  The one who spent her entire weekly paycheck to make sure all her kids had on new matching Tony Romo jerseys when Mike came over for Thanksgiving Dinner in 2015, only to watch Luke Kuechly end Romo’s career and watch him leave to the broadcast booth, just like Mike left her a few weeks later for a younger Hispanic girl at the factory.

The same stories told by the people who can’t or won’t face reality.  This area and era belongs to the Carolina Panthers, and Sunday will be the start of hopefully another Super Bowl run.

So just remember when your obese uncle who comes over uninvited on Sunday makes a stupid “How Bout them Boys??!!” in between belching up old Spam and Natty Light, that it’s OK.

When the drunk Redneck at BOA, who feels entitled to be a douche b/c he had to take out a second mortgage on his double-wide to attend, screams racists remarks when Cam scores his third Touchdown, it’s all alright.

Because Sunday and the future belongs to this team, the only one that matters in 2018, your Carolina Panthers.

Panthers 31,

Cowturds 17

 

 

[iamhubby1]

    Enjoyable read. 

[bababoey]

Can't read all that.  Pied anyway 

[Captain Obvious]

Mike from the factory is an asshole. but he has always been one, so no surprise there.

[mc52beast]

Don’t understand why they are still considered “America’s Team”. They have literally done nothing since the 90’s. 

[JARROD]

I watched the Cowboys last Super Bowl from a bar near Camp Lejeune NC,.. many many many many years ago,..

I still say Neil ODonnell got paid off by Jerry,... he truly was the MVP for Dallas.

anyway,.. wasn’t that during Emperor Nero’s reign? Or maybe it was Commodus or Markus Aurelius,..

a long long long time ago,...

[tiger7_88]

"Gentlemen, you can't fight in here!  This is the War Room!"