Football – Go Retire Psychiatrist

I watched the first half of the Colts vs 49ers game last night and I thought Philip Rivers didn’t look half bad for a 44-year-old guy who’s been out of the game for five years. Did you know he has 10 kids? OK, now that I’ve got that out of my system and that would be, what—the 44^th time you’ve heard that since he took the field?

So what the Colts lost? His big family was up in the stands going crazy, cheering him on.

I read an article this morning which had Steve Young saying he could make a comeback at his age—which is 64. I couldn’t believe it. The same story mentions that George Blanda played for the Oakland Raiders when he was 48 back in 1975.

It got me wondering whether I could make a comeback as a general hospital consulting psychiatrist. Could I gallop up 6-8 floors of University of Iowa Health Care? You bet your bottom dollar—I couldn’t.

It’s hard to retire. Every once in a while, I miss hiking up and down the hospital with my camp stool, deftly swinging it around and sitting with the patients and families, telling medical students and residents all kinds of lies (I mean “wise old adages and pearls of clinical wisdom”).

I get a kick out of just wondering what it would be like. I get a vision of myself with a big, golden glowing aura of greatness around my head—until I come to my senses. Hey, nobody’s going to pay me a quarter million dollars to run the consult service for the few months I’d be able to limp around the hospital, falling off my camp stool when my legs go numb or the chair breaks.

It’s not like I can just throw a football like it’s nothing after 5 years. I’d have to prove I still have enough clinical smarts to figure out how to introduce myself (Hi! I’m Philip Rivers and you need to go long!”).

The Maintenance of Certification Circus is still a thing and it’s worse. I’m not saying doctors don’t undertake the arduous task of essentially retraining to be what they once were—because that’s not good enough anymore.

Last night, the camera caught Phil more than once being just as hard on himself as he was with other members of the team who weren’t in the right spot at the right time. Most physicians are perfectionists and if you’ve been out of the game for a while and you try to squeeze back in, you could wind up mumbling to yourself, “They don’t make footballs like they used to!”

I didn’t stay up for the second half of football game. It wasn’t because of anything Philip did or didn’t do on the field.

I just can’t stay up that late nowadays.

We watched the Super Bowl last night and one of the many commercials (always a big thing) looked vaguely familiar only after Sena pointed it out. It was the Fareway Frank commercial about Fareway stores. It was a reprise of the famous 1979 Coca-Cola commercial with Mean Joe Green, defensive tackle for the Pittsburg Steelers and a kid. When you compare them, the similarities are obvious. There are two Fareway commercials that are the same, but have different titles, one of them being “Mean Joe Frank.”

The Hey Kid, Catch commercial with Mean Joe Green featured a 9-year-old kid named Tommy Okon. I couldn’t find a name for the kid in the “Mean Joe Frank” version.

But you can find film information on Turner Classic Movies titled “The Steeler and the Pittsburgh Kid” which is based on the commercial. The kid is Henry Martin who later starred in the movie, “E.T. The Extraterrestrial” (1982).

This led to reminiscence of Fareway Store in Mason City, Iowa. I used to walk to Fareway to get groceries and walked back carrying at least two big paper sacks. My arms were always pretty sore when I got home. I used a wagon later on, but had to be careful crossing the railroad tracks on the way back to ensure the eggs didn’t break.

There are Fareway stores all across Iowa and several neighboring states now, but the first one opened in Boone, Iowa in 1938. It popularized the idea of shoppers picking out their own items from the shelves rather than letting a store employee pick them out from the shopper’s list. The store name was inspired by what was sold (“fare”) and treating customers and employees fairly.

The Fareway Frank character was called Forrest Frank in 2024 although it looks like the company has settled on Fareway Frank.

The other Iowa connection worth mentioning is that rookie defensive player for the Philadelphia Eagles (Super Bowl winners), Cooper DeJean, who played for the University of Iowa Hawkeye football team, made a pick-6 interception touchdown in the game.

While the Fareway Frank version of the Super Bowl commercials line-up didn’t make the short list (or any list for that matter) of favorites, it sure did bring back memories for us.