Imrem: Trump aside, it's still OK to be soft NFL fan
Here are four words infrequently uttered: Donald Trump is correct.
Not exactly politically correct but correct just the same.
Usually it would be better if The Donald were rendered speechless … just once, just for a moment, just for the peace of it.
Occasionally, however, Trump makes sense, like when he blustered that the NFL is unwatchable because of all the penalties whistled in any given game.
According to Trump, the rules and refs have conspired to make all-time tough-guy types like Dick Butkus and Ray Nitschke obsolete.
True enough even if protecting players is a necessary evil.
Then Trump added that football and our country have gone soft.
Also true enough.
The NFL merely reflects the soft people that we - as in me - have become.
I'm an American, a football fan and softer than a willow's whisper.
This didn't just happen. It took decades to remove the pop from the pop-pop-population.
Believe it or not, kiddies, at one time we had to turn a handle to roll down a car window. Later all we had to do was hold down a button. Now all we have to do is tap a button once.
No wonder we're overweight as a nation. Rotating that handle burned a lot of calories.
We used to shovel snow and now a machine blows it for us. We used walk around malls and now we click a mouse. We used to play in the park and now we play on a screen.
Pretty soon cars will drive themselves to the golf course so we can nap before playing 18 holes in a cart instead of on foot.
OK, now for the softer football fan in me.
In a previous life I would have died of frostbite for a ticket to the Seahawks-Vikings playoff game in subzero temperatures.
Back then I believed that the Bears should play at home in similarly frigid conditions if they ever qualified for the postseason again.
Bears weather! … Clinching a Super Bowl berth as snowflakes fall! … Woof-woof-woof!
Pooh-pooh-pooh to that.
The Bears and the city of Chicago should have done what the Vikings and Twin Cities do every few decades.
The Vikes moved indoors to the Metrodome. Now they're building a new domed stadium.
In between, the Vikings played outdoors at the University of Minnesota for a couple of years just to remind fans that frosty football is dumb.
If God intended for players to play up north in January - and fans to join them in the elements - he wouldn't have invented roofs, indoor plumbing and central heating.
Refusing to sit out in the cold anymore might be a sign that I'm getting softer as I'm getting older …
No, though, it must not be an age thing because former Vikings coach Bud Grant, 88, wore a short-sleeved golf shirt on the field for the coin toss before Sunday's game in Minnesota.
So it isn't my age. It's sanity trumping stupidity.
The Donald is correct on this subject, but I'm comfortable being a soft American and even softer football fan.
mimrem@dailyherald.com