Never knew, Eagle road kill, It ends…

Yesterday my uncle, whom has taken on the role of family historian, sent me scans of a newspaper article from 1938.

It was an article about my grandfather and a friend of his.  Evidently when they were younger they decided to stop conventional life for 8 months and canoe down to Florida.  The article outlined what sounded like a pretty amazing journey which included them riding bike back from Florida as far as the Carolinas.

I had absolutely no idea that my grandfather ever did this.

When I was growing up I knew my grandfather as a guy that always had a smile on his face.  I also remember as I was older how he would always greet me with a very enthusiastic handshake which almost always was accompanied by a reassuring smack on the arm with his other hand.

I actually find myself greeting people I like in a similar way from time to time.  I have no doubt this comes from my years with him.

I knew that grandpa had a pretty interesting history including serving in the Air Force during World War II.  In general though we never talked much in depth about what he had done as a younger man, something I regret now.

Reading about this adventure reopened my interest in what grandpa’s life was really like.  Too bad he is long, long gone.   This story did give me a little insight into perhaps why I find myself attracted to just picking up and going somewhere, seeing the country and appreciating all of the experiences along the way.

If you want to see the second page of the article you can do so here.

Well any hope of the Eagles picking themselves up by their bootstraps and showing they aren’t the awful team that showed up against Atlanta were dashed last night.  They were once again awful.

The offense is back to being incredibly inept in the red zone, despite massing around 450 yards of total offense.  I believe the stat I heard last night was 5 trips inside the opponents 20 yard line resulted in 6 total points. That is terrible.

Vick threw an interception that was run back 99 yards for a TD but it wasn’t really his fault as it bounced off Celek’s hands.  However he also threw a couple would be int’s that the Saints fortunately dropped.

The Eagles offensive line, which has been destroyed by injury is horrible and is surely largely responsible for the incredible amount of hits and sacks that Vick takes.  However Mike doesn’t help himself either.  Vick seems very, very poor at reacting to pressure in an efficient way.

Teams keep using the same formula to beat the Eagles, blitz.  A sharp QB makes a defense pay for this with quick decisions, passing to whomever is left open by the blitz.  Effectively doing this stops the blitz.  Vick isn’t effective in this manner, so the blitzing never stops.

Although it’s hard to believe, the defense actually was playing better under Juan Castillo.  The two games under Todd Bowles have been an unmitigated disaster.  The Saints were rated DEAD LAST in the league in rushing.  They ran for over 160 yards, running through weak Eagle tackling all night long.  It was embarrassing.

There is no consistent pressure on the QB and our “showcase” corners, Cromartie and Asomugha have in a word, sucked.  Asomugha is the biggest disappointment of all because he was paid a fortune to bring his supposed upper tier skills to Philly.   He is kind of a joke.

It’s pretty safe to say the team looks to be in free fall, losing 4 games in a row with the last two losses being absolute ass beatings.  There have been seasons before where this was the case and somehow Andy pulled the nose up.  I don’t think this is one of those years.  I saw true desperation in Andy’s eyes last night, he had no answers.  I think he is done.

Thankfully by this time tomorrow the elections will be over.  It is too bad that electing a leader has evolved into such a bitter, moronic, corrupt and divisive process.  In 2012, elections are catered to the minds that are easily swayed by snappy one-liners, fuzzy math,  robo-calls and junk mail.  Just like politicians are routinely bought, the voting public is as well.  The amount of money spent on psychological welfare to influence the uninformed masses is simply obscene.

No matter who wins tomorrow, I am sure there will be inappropriate chest beating from the victor.  To be clear, nobody should be proud of the state of our country at this time in history.  To me it’s just  a matter of which way we are going to keep the wheels pointed.  I’m not a supporter of U-turns.

Regardless of your political beliefs, this is damn funny, you have to admit.

http://youtu.be/yTCRwi71_ns