Mud Bowl Menagerie

The event had become tradition; a loose collective of confederates would gather on Super Bowl Sunday for a flag football game of their own, typically held at a Eugene park or high school, followed by a watch party supplemented by snack food and beer -- lots of beer. This year's contest would mark the 26th annual Mud Bowl.

Early on, we’d witness some serious football, but as many of the group approached an age when serious football should be played by younger men, both the length and the width of the playing field diminished considerably. Yet the tradition has persisted, and indeed, evolved into an even more elaborate affair.

Initially, games were contested in Eugene during rainy season, and the annual event was an exercise in survival of the fittest -- in the mud. However, each Mud Bowl took on its own persona and, some years, sponsors. This year’s fete was dubbed “Donald Trump Presents Mud Bowl XXVI: The Shithole Bowl" (The Norwegians vs. The Haitians).

Eventually, Mud Bowlers took a cue from the NFL with the decision to move the venue around, in this case, throughout the Northwest: Sunriver, Oregon; Longview, Washington; and this year, in the town that came to be known as the first permanent U.S. settlement on the Pacific coast: Astoria, Oregon (above and below).

The previous year’s “big story” spawned the themes. When Tiger Woods was in the news, we had “The Tiger Bowl” (The Tigers vs. The Angry Swedes); during the Great Recession, we had “The Economy Bowl” (The Wall Street Bailouts vs. The Main Street Discounts); then, there's my fave, “The Bitch Bowl” (The Tonyas vs. The Nancys).

Teams were selected by drawing slips of paper with wily witticisms and clever quips from a hat, along with team designation. Then, the game would begin. Some years, we had plenty of players, so substitution was possible, and indeed, encouraged. With beer and food on the bench, nobody sent to the sideline argued.

Named after John Jacob Astor, an investor from New York City who owned the American Fur Company, Astoria was founded in 1811 and featured the first U.S. post office west of the Rocky Mountains. We stayed at the Commander’s Quarters, a Victorian home (above) adjacent to Fort Stevens, a former military installation.

Built near the end of the Civil War, Fort Stevens guarded the mouth of the Columbia River. President Abraham Lincoln had commissioned the site as an active military reservation to defend the site from potential British attack at a time when the Pacific Northwest was still a point of contention between the two countries.

Visiting the museum at Fort Stevens, I was reminded about the enemy attack in 1942, when a I-25 Japanese submarine surfaced and fired 17 shells from its gun deck. The shots fell harmless because the fort’s commander had ordered an immediate blackout and refused to permit return fire, which would have revealed their position.

The incident resulted in very little damage (most rounds landed in a nearby baseball field or a swamp). Assuming that nobody was home, the Japanese submarine withdrew. Spotted by an Army Air Corps plane, the pilot called in the location for a bomber to attack but the I-25 escaped and submerged intact.

Despite the lack of engagement, the Japanese attack helped create the 1942 “West Coast invasion scare,” and the Fort Stevens shelling was the only time that a continental U.S. military installation was attacked by the Axis powers during World War II. Today, Fort Stevens is preserved as an Oregon State Park, where elk roam freely.

On game day, the Mud Bowlers conducted an abbreviated game of touch football. In year’s past, the goal was to score touchdowns; on this day, the goal was to avoid injury. Mission accomplished, and there was more good news: the consistently beleaguered Philadelphia Eagles would beat the widely dreaded New England Patriots.

British Bulldog

As a student of history, my particular interest has focused on those leaders of the free world -- both political and military -- who battled the fascists during the Second World War: Franklin D. Roosevelt, Douglas McArthur, George Patton, Bernard Montgomery, Dwight Eisenhower and Winston Churchill, among others.

By coincidence, I was reading the recent bestseller, “Hero of the Empire: The Boer War, A Daring Escape and The Making of Winston Churchill” by Candice Millard when “Darkest Hour” with Gary Oldman as Churchill premiered at The Bijou over the holidays. In both cases, the man and the myth came into clearer focus.

Indisputably the most revered Brit of all time (despite the fact that he was half-American), Churchill was both widely loved and loathed. In the book, the author describes the young Churchill, an ambitious aristocrat with almost foolhardy faith in his destiny who believed he would one day govern as Prime Minister of Great Britain.

Seeking fame and fortune, and with complete faith in his “star,” Churchill fought for the realm in India and Pakistan, the Sudan and finally in South Africa during the Boer War. Captured by the Boers and imprisoned, Churchill engineered a daring escape, eventually returning to England and taking his place in government.

As with many other notable figures in history, his path to greatness was fraught with drawbacks and failures. As first lord of the admiralty, his “victory at all costs” approach had been blamed for the military disaster in Gallipoli during World War I near the Dardanelles Straits in an effort to gain an edge against Turkey.

Churchill had sent British, French, New Zealander and Australian troops, mostly half-trained volunteers, to besiege the Gallipoli Peninsula, resulting in a military disaster of epic proportions. The debacle resulted in a demotion for Churchill, so he left the government and joined the Army.

A quarter-century later, however, when Hitler’s aggression forced the British to reconsider their approach to Nazi Germany, Churchill was promoted once again to Lord Admiral. When the war effort resulted in impending crises, the British proceeded with the formation of a new coalition government led by Churchill.

That story is the subject of “Darkest Hour,” which examines the days preceding and immediately after Churchill’s ascension to Prime Minister, when he faced the decision to negotiate peace with the Nazis, or stand firm to fight for the liberty and freedom of a nation, and ultimately, the free world.

Critics will characterize him as a violent racist with a penchant for for imperialism -- and scotch. But the fact remains that, for Churchill, when it came to stopping Hitler, the buck stopped squarely on his desk. Responding to the Nazis with the stubborn tenacity of a bulldog, he rallied his nation to vanquish the fascist oppressors.