Whenever the National Football League Super Bowl arrives, I remember when I wasn’t far from that initial game while performing my Naval Reserve duty. Reservists do two weeks of active duty each year. I was performing my press relation duties ( PAO, public affairs officer ) at the San Diego Naval base.
That was my first, and only, command of the small ( four people ) PAO office near the harbor. Friday afternoon and the Lieutenant Commander in charge had a hot tip he wanted to pursue at the Tijuana Mexico, horse race track.
My tour of duty would end before the first Super Bowl. Maxine was driving the four children to San Diego. If we wanted, we could later drive to Los Angeles and see the Super Bowl I. Plenty of tickets. The Chiefs of the American conference were not expected to be much of an opponent of the Green Bay Packers, National champions. ( As predicted, Packers 35, Chiefs 10)
But for an old sportswriter seeing the first Super Bowl—-this year, we’ll watch Super Bowl LVI ( that’s 56 in Roman Coliseum numbers )—-was a great allure.
So, we loaded up the children and drove to the San Diego Zoo.
Photo by Michael Bednarek at Shutterstock
