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Many news bulletins not important

ast Friday I had carefully prepared lunch between 10:30 a.m. and 11 a.m. by boiling some eggs to add to some canned white chicken (breast?) with mayonnaise, relish (I prefer sweet for the chicken salad rather than dill), some ground mustard, fresh ground pepper, and some Mrs. Dash.

I set that in the refrigerator to cool well. I powered up the TV to hear and watch Alex Trebeck (George Alexander Trebeck OC – OC = Ordre du Canada) hosting “Jeopardy” for the 33rd year. “Jeopardy” is one of the few shows I like to watch and try to compete in, which is tough, as the contestants are often so quick with their answers.

I haven’t really kept an accurate count, but I would like to think I get about 50 percent of the final question answers. My biggest downfall is when they ask questions about modern, popular musicians and movie stars or TV celebrities.

Right after the final Jeopardy question was answered on Friday, I headed to the kitchen and finished preparing my salad, stuffing it onto a quartered fresh, garden tomato. I got back to the table in front of the TV with my lunch prepared to watch, “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” “Millionaire” is no where near as good as “Jeopardy,” but it is something to watch while I eat.

Now and then, however, there is a question that is intriguing and one came up on Friday. My wording of the question may not be exactly what was given, but went something like, “One of Vladimir Putin’s favorite dishes is French fries covered in brown gravy with cheese curds on top which is a dish originating in which country?” The contestant was given four countries from which to choose and at that moment: “We interupt this program for a special news bulletin.” NO! NO! NO!

Needless to say, the special news bulletin went on for well over five minutes, so I never got the answer. Oh, Fiddlesticks! What really galls me, is that the news bulletin could have been given in five seconds or less: “Steve Bannon is fired from the White House.” The rest of the bulletin was at least 10 or 15 pictures of Bannon, Bannon with Trump in better times, etc. Then there were the speculations and the public had not been told that he actually had “resigned” much earlier. Couldn’t that have waited for the regular news that usually comes at noon?

It does seem that most of those breaking news stories aren’t really that important that we need to know them instantaneously – maybe tornadoes or floods in the area might deserve that instantaneous quality, but Bannon’s leaving the White House?

jtr

My anger did not match the anger of thousands of football fans in the eastern half of the U.S. almost 50 years ago when they did not get to view and hear the last minute of a football game on Nov. 17, 1968. Even if you were not around to experience it, you may remember hearing about the story of the Heidi Game.

The New York Jets and the Oakland Raiders began the game at 4 p.m. eastern (7 p.m. Pacific) at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum. The teams had “bad blood” between them including a vicious game in 1967 where QB Joe Namath had been slugged to the turf, hit late, and punched in the groin. Namath’s jaw was broken but he finished the game with 370 yards and three TDs though losing 38-27. The loss to the Raiders knocked the Jets out of a first place tie in their division.

In 1968 the two teams were among the top leaders in the American Football League. Several years earlier, the Oakland general manager had traded a guard (Dan Ficca) to New York without revealing that Ficca would not be released from the military for six more weeks. Namath stated he liked the Raiders least of all AFL teams.

The 1968 game was to be broadcast by NBC. NBC had allowed for three hours broadcast time which was plenty based on earlier games which had used only up to two and a half hours. No game had ever before taken three hours. NBC had guaranteed to Timex, the sole advertisers of the Heidi movie, that Heidi would start at precisely 7 p.m. ET.

The Heidi film had been heavily promoted. An engineer in Chicago had been instructed earlier to cut to the Heidi film at 7 p.m., receiving orders from the NBC president who was at home in Connecticut during the game.

Unfortunately there were 31 incomplete passes which stopped the game clock. Add to that, 19 penalties stopping the clock. Each team used all six of the allotted time outs. Add in some advertising breaks and it became clear that the game might not end in the three hour time limit. NBC started getting telephone calls from both football fans and those expecting Heidi to start. This essentially blocked up the telephone lines and blew some fuses so that communication between the east coast, Chicago and Oakland became impossible so that the engineer’s instructions could not be changed.

The engineer switched the eastern NBC feed to Heidi with about a minute left in the game. In addition the TV within 90 miles of Oakland had been blacked out under the current league rules.

Thus the outrage of fans who missed the last two touchdowns of the game at 42 seconds and 33 seconds to go to the end – giving Oakland a 32 to 43 win.

jtr

By the way, regarding French fries, brown gravy, and cheese curds – it is a dish from Canada called Poutine. Had to research that due to being cut off last Friday by that “News” Bulletin.

Until next time: Oh, Fiddlesticks!

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