Chez Chesler

Chanukah began four hours ago; Christmas is over in four hours. Suppose you were a football fan. Football is the only sport you watch. The highlight of your year is the Superbowl, for which you throw a major in-home tailgate party. You're surrounded by baseball fans. They know nothing about football, except that it's played on a soccer field, and had its origins in rugby from the 1920s, and was known as a dangerous sport. Every year at your school or office, they hold a major party for the opening of spring training, and they close so that people can attend Opening Day. And the biggest event of the year is the World Series. They hold a pageant for the World Series, before giving everyone the week off so they can watch it on TV. You point out that you don't really care about the World Series. So they say they'll accomodate everybody, and rename the World Series break the October World Series/Week 8/Halloween Vacation. Are you satisfied? Would you be more satisfied or less if you consider that you're allowed to watch football at home, unlike a generation ago when everybody was forced to watch American League baseball at school and when people were killed for being football fans? Would it be a legal nitpick if you pointed out that your tax dollars were being taken to fund this school with the World Series/Week 8/Halloween vacation, and that the law governing this school was explicit that schools couldn't favor one sport over another? Would you feel better if the month leading up to World Series/Week 8/Halloween vacation the students all studied "Casey at the Bat", "The Natural", "Bull Durham", and "Field of Dreams" under the curriculum item "Sports in Literature" until you pointed out that it's a little unbalanced, so they add "Horse Feathers" and maybe dress in 1920s leather helmets and maybe read "Paper Lion" as well as "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown"?