Catching up with the rest of the world

Yesterday, I broke my 2006 World Cup cherry and spent most of the day watching Ghana vs. the Czech Republic (at home), then the U.S. vs. Italy (at a bar).

Let me say, I am perpetually amused by the enthusiasm that surrounds the World Cup when it rolls around. It's not that I don't understand the worldwide fervor for the event in general. Soccer's a big deal in the world—but not here. No one in this country watches soccer. Everyone grows up playing it, and then they stop, and people spend their regular sports energy instead on the Yankees, or the Lakers, or the Steelers, or Duke basketball. There's a professional soccer league around, somewhere, but nobody pays it the slightest attention. When's the last time you ever heard anyone talk knowledgeably about the box score of last night's Metrostars game?

And then, every four years, it's time for the World Cup, and boom, everyone's a soccer fan. Suddenly every Joe's an expert on the best players on the Brazil team, and what's going on in Group E, and how big of an upset it is for Ecuador to beat Poland. The other day, my colleagues and I walked into the conference room only to find that someone was using the projector and screen there to watch a World Cup match. It's all anyone talks about. Where does all this passion for futbol come from? And where is it the rest of the time, when the World Cup isn't around?

Another thing: It's events like the World Cup that chip away at my patriotic cynicism. These days, it's hard to admire the good ol' U.S. of A., given the way we selfishly bully other countries; and it doesn't help when Americans behave boorishly abroad (or at home, for that matter). Sometimes I secretly wonder, when conservatives label those of us against the war and this government "unpatriotic," whether they might be partly right. After all, I feel so out-of-touch with the average patriotic American. But then you're at a bar, cheering on the U.S. against Italy, and you look around, and everyone is so genuinely proud of the American team, regardless of politics; and you realize that patriotism isn't dead, or embarrassing, or wrong. Some of us just show it in different ways. (I even wrote a stiff and meandering essay about this very subject once, at the 2002 Olympics; but I never did figure out just what I was trying to say.) Of course, maybe I just love an underdog.

As for the games themselves ... pretty damn exciting. The second red card against the U.S. was kinda bullshit, though of course I have no idea what I'm talking about. That elbow in the face was one of the most brutal things I've ever seen. Ghana's a scrappy team, and they'll be tough to beat. If the U.S. doesn't advance, I'll be rooting for Ghana the rest of the way. And this sums up the intensity of the U.S.-Italy game fairly well, if you watched the game at all. (Giving equal time to the international press, here's a similar game-blog from the Guardian UK. You can tell it comes from an actual soccer-playing country because it's peppered with strange terms like "welly the ball" and "double buggerlugs." God bless the Brits.) Good stuff. Can't wait for Thursday. With my newfound wisdom, I was able to hold my own in a good ten-minute conversation with the host, the bartender, and some random barfly—all of them European, I believe—at Euzkadi that night. I guess, when it comes to World Cup, we all become citizens of the world.

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In the morning, when we were watching Ghana vs. the Czech Republic, I kept hearing this bell, which sounded like a bell on a bicycle. "Is that coming from the TV?" I asked my roommate. No, he said, maybe it was the ice cream truck. Hell, no; I know what that goddamn ice cream truck sounds like. Oh, right, he said—actually, he thought he'd seen the "knife grinder" in the neighborhood earlier, so that was probably what it was. A traveling knife grinder? I'd never heard of such a thing. But later that day, when I was walking home from watching the U.S.-Italy game, I passed this, a block and a half from my apartment:

First thought: That is so odd. A couple was earnestly consulting with the guy inside about their lawnmower blades or something. (Again: That is so odd.) Then I went home, fetched my beloved 8-inch Icel knife, came back, and handed it over—after which Bob, I assume, sharpened the blade and also fixed the tip, which I'd bent when I dropped the knife tip-down on the floor once. He had to start the ignition to make the grinding mechanism go. The ways of the grinder guy are most mysterious. Grand total for all this handiwork: ten bucks. And when he handed the knife back to me, he said, "That's a nice knife." I beamed. So much better than ice cream.

Comments

[Annah]

I'm SURE you meant to say, ". . . or Carolina basketball."

[HH]

When my family lived in Queens, I remember a second uncle on my mother's side, one of the Italians, who drove a fruit truck. Fruit trucks, knife sharpeners, chimney sweeps, milk deliveries (cold milk in bottles left on stoops) - pretty normal in old New York, all the boroughs.

[Lou]

Someone forgot to list diaper delivery...by the way, I think NY's team is no longer the Metrostars. I believe they're the Red Bulls

[Nomi]

For a while around where my parents live there was a knife grinder who'd come around on his bicycle. I guess he had to sharpen with old fashioned muscle power. Anyhow, the good part of this is that, it being suburban Boston, the guy was actually an out of work psychologist. Goes to show that having a back up trade really is a good idea.