Year: 2010

I wish I possessed many different skills. I wish I had some true musical talent. I want to cook fanciful dishes. I dream of building some piece of furniture that blow people’s minds.

But, most of all, I really wish I could fix my own car.

I love my Saturn, even though General Motors kicked the brand to the curb. I am on my second Saturn and would gladly get a third one if they still made them.

This model does have one problem, however. The engineers designed it in such a way that a normal person cannot change a headlight. This doesn’t mean that it’s a little difficult. They literally force you to remove the entire fender to change a stinking headlight.

I distinctly remember where I was and what I was doing when I first realized I needed glasses. I don’t remember exactly when although I know it was near the end of third grade and before fourth, which would put it in 1977. But the location is unforgettable.

I sat with my family in the upper deck of Baltimore’s old Memorial Stadium enjoying an Orioles game. We were on the first-base side, facing the big scoreboard beyond the left-center field fence.

Since most of my siblings and both of my parents wore glasses, I knew even then at not quite 9 that I would eventually have to wear them as well. The day of reckoning came that night as I struggled to read the numbers on the scoreboard.

So when I started fourth grade that fall at a new school, I had specs. It was bad enough that I was the new kid and could tend to have a big mouth. Now I had glasses. What a perfect combination. Let’s just say I heard my share of “Four Eyes” jokes.

I managed to survive and some sort of corrective lenses have been part of my life ever since. Over the past 30-plus years, I have grown from a kid who squinted to read the scoreboard at a baseball game several hundred feet away to a man who struggles to read the alarm clock a few feet away without glasses on.

None of it really bothers me, to be honest. I don’t even think twice about wearing contacts every day and have even gotten better at making sure I remove them before I take a nap. But I have slowly discovered something that changes the whole game, and I don’t know how much I like it.

I think I need bifocals.

That special feeling has filled the air. The wind has an extra bite. Conversation around the office picks up. Weekends feel much more important.

Football season has arrived, possibly my favorite part of the year.

I follow a lot of sports, but football seems to take precedence more and more each year. Sure, I’m still a soccer fanatic, but I can drift in and out of the seasons with my favorite team. Only the U.S. national team gets me worked up anymore.

I don’t get worked up about football, to be honest. I just get excited. Maybe it’s how well the games go with food and beer. Maybe it’s the gambling. Maybe it’s because I know the whole thing drives my wife nuts.

Yes, I live in a house divided by our interest in football. I love the game. She would be perfectly happy if it disappeared tomorrow.