River on Fire Side Chat – Heading into Week 5

We’re knee deep in this filth. Weeks into another season and weeks away from another presidential election. Is that hope that smells so foul?

Fransburg is having quite the season, easily dismantling the Battery dream of a salvageable shot at legitimacy. The only thing that this Cleveland has going for it is one win more than the perennially horrendous Browns.

I am heading down to the River that Caught Fire, the Cuyahoga, on Sunday to commiserate with a few thousand fans in the Factory of Sadness. The Cleveland Browns face the New England Patriots and the return of Tom Brady.

When I was in high school, I worked as a ball boy with the Browns during Belichick’s tenure in Cleveland before shutting down for Baltimore. The Browns still had some of my childhood heroes on the roster: Bernie Kosar, Kevin Mack, Clay Matthews, Mike Johnson and Frank Minnifield. All these guys were on their last leg of their careers. Kosar would eventually be let go by the Browns in 1993 due to “diminishing skills.” I burned my Browns hat outside my dorm room at Boston College when I heard the news.

Life grows around us and we hopefully stop setting fires. Maybe we still hate when our team loses on Sunday but we shake off the crank and manage to have a good day nonetheless. I know that this Sunday I will wear some brown and orange and cheer after an 18-yard run; I’ll turn and high five my father-in-law and some other strangers; we’ll bark and shake our heads and groan; we’ll either leave early because why not or we’ll stay ’til the end to watch the inevitable boneheadedness of another Browns loss. This really is the end of the road for Browns fandom in our household. My girls only care because I care. I am going to enjoy my team to the bitter, bitter, bitter end.

Talk to you next week.

© 2016, Ben Pershey. All rights reserved.