By Ed Harris, Jewish Sound Columnist
Jews have a long history, until relatively recently, as outsiders. This collective cultural memory served me well during the recent Seahawks playoff run, which ended in heartbreaking fashion for most — but not all — of the local denizens. One exception: the author of this column.
I’ve called Puget Sound home for nearly a quarter century. The first Jew, Abraham, left his birthplace to begin life in a new land, and I did the same, in my case a region glistening with mountains and forest, and peopled by software developers, coffee lovers and entrepreneurs, plus a small sprinkling of Jews, at least as compared to the New York City of my childhood.
Seattle is indeed now my true home. One of my three children was born in Kirkland, and the other two, who arrived by stork, were both raised here. For the most part, I’ve embraced the Pacific Northwest ethos completely. After all, what’s not to love about a state with stunning scenic beauty, no income tax, and a welcome mat out for stoners?
The single exception in my otherwise thoroughly Seattle soul: A lifelong rooting interest for the New York Giants football team. Wordsworth observed that “the child is the father of the man,” a statement never more true than when describing one’s earliest emotional memories, especially of those growing up in a household of Giants fans.
When it comes to football, therefore, I remain an outsider. In this regard, I am reminded of grade school, where I always refrained from singing particularly religious songs during the annual Christmas assembly. I had no problem as a fourth-grader with Frosty the Snowman; celebrating the birth of Christ the Lord, not so much.
I relived this sense of foreign status in the weeks leading up to the Super Bowl. Unlike much of life, sports are a zero sum game, where for every winner there must be a loser. In most other cases good fortune is shared. When the economy is humming on all cylinders, many boats get lifted by the same rising tide. If the sun is shining, it shines for all of us. But they only crown one champion in athletic endeavors. A year in which any team besides the Giants wins the Super Bowl means heartbreak. To live in a city surrounded by Seahawks zealots simply rubs my nose in my bad fortune. Like a Jew in medieval Christian Europe, I don’t merely fail to fit in: I hold a false belief that runs counter to the prevailing orthodoxy, in this case that we all love the Seahawks. Confession: I don’t.
This probably sounds overwrought. My wife thinks I’m a sore loser, and as is usually the case, she’s right. “Think of all our friends and neighbors who are happy about the Seahawks,” she tells me. “Isn’t that worth celebrating? We do live here.”
Curmudgeon that I am (if cast as one of the seven dwarfs, I’d be Grumpy), my heart remains unmoved.
The game itself demonstrated the power of the Butterfly Effect, so named because of the belief one tiny flap of a single Lepidoptera deep in the Amazonian jungle has the power to alter the fate of empires. With fewer than 30 seconds left on the clock, the Seahawks had the ball on the Patriots’ one-yard line and appeared on the verge of scoring a game-winning touchdown. If only Pete Carroll had not explicably failed to call a play for the NFL’s most unstoppable running back, Marshawn Lynch, or if Russell Wilson had thrown his ill-fated pass a mere two feet lower and directly at the chest of his intended target, receiver Ricardo Lockette, the fate of American sports would have unfolded in an entirely different fashion. And in a repeat of last year, nearly the entire populace of Seattle would have assembled to cheer its champions in a raucous parade through the heart of the city.
Had this civic celebration taken place I know one person who would have stayed home. All I can ask is that you keep my sports heresy a secret. After all, I wouldn’t want to offend the neighbors.
Ed Harris, the author of “Fifty Shades of Schwarz” and several other books, was born in the Bronx and lives in Bellevue with his family. His blog, Fizz-Ed, and additional information about his books are available at www.edharrisauthor.com.