There's nothing as disconcerting as having the same name as someone else. It's one thing to look like someone else, because you're still you. But when you have the exact same name, it's like having your identity stolen. On the other hand there are people who embrace name sharing. Like all the people named Jim Smith who actually have a convention for themselves.
Me, I talked to someone who had my same name before I got my married one. We were the same age too. I called her up because I kept getting phone calls from guys who thought she was me. She had been meaning to call because she was hearing from guys who thought she was me, too. The whole thing creeped me out thank you very much.
A few years ago, after getting rid of that other name via marriage, I learned there is another Mrs. Linklater in the Chicago area. I learned this because an FBI agent left her card in the crook of the storm door at my house. She wanted to know if I knew someone I'd never heard of. When I said, no, she said, oh, it must be the other Mrs. Linklater.
On Sunday there was an unusual convergence of same names in a very public forum. There are two NFL running backs named Adrian Peterson. One Adrian Peterson plays somewhat anonymously behind the controversial, much-maligned Bears' running back, Cedric Benson. The other Adrian Peterson is a future hall of famer rookie who starts for Minnesota.
Yesterday the Minnesota Vikings played the Chicago Bears. The Vikings' Adrian Peterson had the kind of day the Bears' Adrian Peterson can only dream of.
The guys in the FOX Sports booth were in total awe of the Vikings' Adrian Peterson. They laid it on with a trowel so thick that one of the local sports anchors put together a bunch of their drooling sound bites for his report this morning and said, "Enough already." Not that the Bears' Adrian Peterson was terrible. He just wasn't the Vikings' Adrian Peterson.
All of the Adrian Peterson talk served to make Cedric Benson look really bad by comparison to either one of the Adrian Petersons, although his lack of production is so poor, he can do that all by himself.
Meanwhile, the Bears lost the game because the Vikings' Adrian Peterson returned a kick off for fifty yards, after the Bears miraculously tied the game with about a minute to go. Unfortunately, that kick off return gave the Vikings' kicker a chance to punch out hislongest field goal ever and win the game as time ran out.
Afterward, all the analysts in Chicago were whining and moaning about how bad the Bears' defense has been, how awful Cedric Benson is, and how all but one of the losing teams of the last bunch of Super Bowls have had terrible years afterward.
But I see sunshine among all these dark and stormy clouds. For me, watching the game from the comfort of my living room, there was a rainbow of hope. With less than four minutes to go the Bears were down by two touchdowns. In the Rex Grossman era, the game would have ended that way.
But since Rex blew it one too many times, we're now in the Brian Griese epoch. Brian, son of Hall of Famer, Bob, is a ten year veteran who has been toiling behind the Rexmeister. Yesterday, when the defense finally kept the Vikings from scoring, he was able to throw two strikes for TDs in a very short amount of time. Something the Rexonator wasn't known for.
The first pass was thrown to a spot in the middle of the field. If you look at the replay there is nothing where he threw it, but air. Suddenly Mussan Muhammed appeared out of nowhere in between two defenders to snatch the pass and take it in for the touchdown. The other pass was a deep toss over the shoulder to Devin Hester in full stride. Hester had already scored a touchdown on his first kick return of the day and this one tied up the game. It was BEEYOUTIFULL!!!
No way Rex could have made those throws. Griese makes faster, better decisions, more accurate throws, and he can find his alternate receivers before his protection breaks down. Rex supposedly has a stronger arm, but Joe Montana won a few Super Bowls with his "weak" arm. And Griese is no Joe Montana. I mean that in a good way.
So the Bears lost, but there was some good news too. Brian Griese is looking like the NFL quarterback everybody thought he could be before he had drinking problems. But everybody was too busy dumping on the defense and Cedric Benson to notice.
Of course, IF the Bears just hadn't kicked off to Adrian Peterson after that last TD. . .IF the special teams players had only stopped him sooner during his runback. . .IF IF IF.
Now if only the Bears' Adrian Peterson could get a chance to start in place of Cedric Benson.
2 comments:
Good to see you're still Kickin Names & Taking Ass! ... or something like that :)
I hope you're well, Mrs. L !!
There is an absolute deadbeat with my name, and it's because of her that I have an unlisted number. I became aware of her existence a few years ago, when I started getting phone calls from her angry creditors...slews of phone calls! I gleaned quite a lot of information from those angry creditors, among other things, the other JH is 4 years younger than I am; she once owned a vintage clothing store called SecondHand Rose (good name, I have to admit); her middle initial is K and she's married to Richard; she has charge cards at quite a few stores where I've coincidentally never shopped (e.g., Kohl's), which is how I originally realized she existed; in spite of her disastrous credit history, she consistently seems to apply for, and acquire, more credit cards, on which she continues to default. For obvious reasons, she has an unlisted phone number; I didn't, and as incredible as it sounds, at some point, she apparently discovered that I existed, and began to provide my listed number on her credit card applications. A couple of places told me that and I didn't believe them, but a detective eventually told me she was almost certainly doing that and suggested I get an unlisted number, which I did. Since then, for the most part, the calls have stopped, although I got another one a couple of weekends ago.
It's a strange, strange world...
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