I’m feeling pretty bummed about this whole thing, and also a little guilty.  I feel guilty because I wonder if I would feel so sad if it had been someone else on the team – not one of the star players.  When I think about that question I realize that there’s a bigger issue going on for me.

As far as I can remember, I became a Redskins fan back in 1981, the first year Joe Gibbs coached the team.  I was 8 years old.  I’m not sure if I showed interest in it and my dad encouraged that or if my dad, a big football fan, decided that it was about time to get his sons watching football.  Either way, a year after I became a fan the Skins won the Super Bowl and went on a great run for about 10 years.

I was very luck to grow up being a fan of a team that was doing well almost all the time.  As kids we did all sorts of things like greeting the team at the airport when they flew back from Super Bowls, sitting the audience of the various local Redskins Report TV shows, or getting autographs whenever we happened to bump into a player out in public.  In addition to forming strong feelings about the team during that time, my brothers and father and I formed a bond around being fans.

As a kid it was great because Sunday afternoon was football time – we never had any conflicts!  If the Skins were playing, we were watching.  Back then, half-time was a bit longer so we’d duck out into the back yard to throw the football around some.  Sometimes Pop came out with us – that was always the best.  We’d play around until Mom hollered for us because the game was back on.  The first few minutes of the second half we were always winded, having just run in after one last long bomb.

I’m sure life was miserable for my mom and sister after a Skins loss – having half the family sulk around the house must have been no fun.  After a win I’m sure it was a lot better.

Eventually I went off to college and a couple of years later Coach Joe Gibbs retired.  Many a phone call back home involved talking to Pop about the Skins.  After Gibbs retired the Skins were never quite the same so Pop and I would talk about what the Skins needed to do to get back to their old winning ways.  We talked about coaches, other than Norv Turner it seemed like a new one every year or so.  We talked about quarterbacks, the Skins managed to try several different ones every year.

After college, when I was living in Houston, I would go to a sports bar on Sundays, usually by myself, to catch the game.  It was usually on the smallest screen in the joint and there were always more fans for the other team.  But after the game, win or lose, I could give Pop a call to talk about it.

When I moved back to the DC area we would occasionally get together for Skins games.  But the Skins usually weren’t that good and there always seemed to be conflicting obligations.  Plus who wanted to go get into a funk with other people after a loss?  What was once a fun, family bonding experience had now become a fairly depressing, solitary event.  But I still enjoyed rehashing the various Skins news with Pop.

Then, back in 2003, Pop died.  Obviously there are tons of things I miss about him but for some reason one of the hardest things for me was not having him around to talk about the Skins.  Less than a year later the impossible happened, Joe Gibbs came back as the coach.  What I would have given to talk to Pop about that move!  I was overjoyed and heartbroken at the same time – Pop would have never believed it.

Of course, the second Joe Gibbs era hasn’t been the same as the first.  Brian and I have families now and we rarely find time to catch a game together.  Heck, if it weren’t for the invention of the DVR, and a very patient and understanding wife, I wouldn’t be seeing many games these days.  My kids are too young to be fans and who knows if they’ll even be interested in football.  I’ve been holding out hope that Gibbs would eventually get the Skins turned around and if they were winning more Brian and I would make the effort to catch more games together.  Maybe the Skins are on the verge of another strong 10 year run, just about the time when I could bond with my kids over it.

For some reason this news of Sean Taylor has almost killed my desire to be a Skins fan, at least for now.  Maybe it’s because I felt he was one of the key players on the team and without him I see several more years of struggling.  It seemed like if he hadn’t been out with an injury for the previous two games the Skins could have won those – and maybe that would have made this season the turn-around season.

I guess my kids are still several years from being able to appreciate football.  Maybe this is for the best.  Maybe I should just check out of the Skins fan club for about 5 years and see how things are going then.  It obviously won’t be with Joe Gibbs but maybe when Coral is 8 the Skins will have a new, great coach and we can watch some football together – and have fun.

I’m hoping to stay somewhat ahead of the curve as my kids get older. If nothing else, I’m hoping that I’ll at least realize when my kids have surpassed me.

Here’s a quick example of what I’m talking about. The other day my daughter asked me if she could take some pictures. We have a spiffy little Canon Digital Elph which, apparently, my kid has already mastered (she’s almost 3). Like most digital cameras, after you take a photo the picture is displayed on the LCD screen. You can set the camera to display it only for a few seconds, or for longer. I usually have it set to show the picture only for a couple of seconds – mostly because it is confusing to some people how to jump away from the display in order to take another picture without waiting for the default period to pass. The trick is to slightly depress the shutter button and it will jump back into picture taking mode.

When my daughter is taking pictures I set the display time to 10 seconds or so – it gives her time to snap a shot and run over and show it to me before it disappears. Well the other day she figured out the trick to getting the photo display to go away so she could take another picture. I never showed her – she just figured it out.

I think the key is that kids don’t know how anything works – so they use trial and error. Figuring out how to use a high tech digital camera isn’t much different than figuring out how to use a fork, or open a door, or put on your clothes. Adults, on the other hand, have preconceived ideas for how things should, or even can, work. Sometimes this makes it hard for us to figure out new fangled high tech stuff.

I had heard about PTI and I grew up reading columns by Mike and Tony in the Washington Post. So, it’s not like didn’t know the show was out there. I probably even got glimpses of it on TVs at restaurants and public places like that. About a year or so ago, when I finally caved and got an iPod, I was out hunting around for good podcast material. I think at the time PTI was one of the higher ranked podcasts on iTunes so I subscribed.

Well, since then I’ve been a fairly loyal “watcher” of the program – I even started recording it on my DVR. Strangely, I still haven’t ever sat down to watch an entire episode.

One thing about PTI that really hits me sometimes is that my dad would have loved it! He died back in 2003 and PTI had been around for a while so maybe he did watch it. I’m not sure if he had ESPN at home but he was an airline pilot and spent a lot of time in hotels – maybe he was able to catch it then? Anyway, during almost every episode (when Tony and Mike are on) I think of my dad and wish I had found PTI while he was still around – it would have been tons of fun to watch it with him or just talk about it sometimes.

Finally, the whole point of this pointless post, is to say that Tony and Mike are back from vacation! Good stuff. I actually don’t mind too much when one of them is gone – Bob Ryan and even Dan LeBatard are decent substitutes. I used to hate it when both Tony and Mike were gone but this time around I managed to catch several episodes with the replacements and they weren’t bad.

One of these days I might have to sit down and actually watch the show.