"See the USA in your ______"

Let’s talk about jingles. For younger readers, that means commercials that live or die on catchy tunes. And believe it or not, we had them before TV ever came along.

Remember? “Don’t despair, use your head save your hair with ________.”

Or, “Be happy go lucky, be happy go_____.”

Or how about, “What a thrill to take the wheel in a brand new ______.”

And who can forget, “Use ____ (bum, bum)--the foaming cleanser…”

Hint: All those products are gone or nearly so. Fill in the blanks correctly and you’re my kinda guy or gal, which either means over the hill and out to pasture or livin’ large on easy street. I hope it’s the latter. See the correct answers below in any event.

Since commercials on TV reach their annual crescendo about now—thanks to all the Super Bowl hype that advertisers glom onto, targeting their newest ditties to the event come Sunday—let’s take a look at some winners of the past year to see how many might stay alive beyond the final score.

Several come to mind. None, mind you, ape what the advertising trade magazines or the entertainment feature writers hype. Most of their favorites are for the aficionados and not us down-home folks who swear by, or at, the kind of good stuff found in local newspaper pieces like ours. I hasten to add that the ones below are solely the product of the fertile nooks and crannies of one mind, working hard.

The best of the lot, if you please:

N GEICO’s Cavemen. They’re the greatest. Defending against a putdown by an interviewer, one responds, “Walking upright, discovering fire…sorry we couldn’t get that to you sooner.” I can hardly wait for a Caveman to discover GEICO’s Gecko. On the other hand, this leading Stafford County firm’s other commercial series, featuring noted “explainers” who assist real live customers talking on-screen, should be dumped.

N Nationwide Insurance is right up there with its commercial of the guy who keeps pushing the button at his house but can’t figure out what it’s for. And then we see a neighbor’s garage door that keeps banging down on the hood of her car.

N Fidelity Investments scores with the Harry Homeowner type who simply must have the most powerful tools around to use. He blasts away everything with his maxed-out leaf blower, curling up his lawn’s sod and obliterating his mailbox. Reminds me of the Oxiclean guy.

N A feel-good mood commercial about people doing the right, considerate thing for others was a winner for Liberty Mutual. One person helps another, who keeps another from falling, who continues the good-neighbor sequence, to heart-warming background music.

N The management firm SAP makes its point simply with a wistfully optimistic Oriental girl. She says right to the camera that SAP is great for companies that grow, “and that’s great because WE are going global—after we go national.”

Didn’t catch them all? Of course not, unless like me you watch CNBC's stock market channel in the afternoons.

And now for a short litany of losers…

How about the silly use of robots as funny characters. Fox NFL games feature one repeatedly for no good reason I can see. And Dodge Ram pickups feature two boxing robots as unfunny as Fox’s.

As for the Aflac duck, cook his goose.

One last note: Volkswagen used to have terrific commercials about its Bug, then got lost in the car-ad shuffle. (Q: Who ever gave the spouse a new car for Christmas?) But VW’s gutsy new commercials showing its cars in realistic crashes to promote their safety features are commendable.

Oh yes, and here are the old jingles’ subjects: Fitch Shampoo. Lucky Strike. Oldsmobile. Ajax. But you already had guessed them. Right?
Buy me a drink and I’ll sing them.
Better still, don’t.

Great football games

History’s greatest football games.....

If you’re a couch potato sports fan like me, you’ll agree we’ve witnessed this year the most entertaining college football game ever played.

This I hereby claim with no caveats. Who can argue otherwise?

An underdog team from Boise State U., from a state much better known for potatoes, is pitted laughably against perennial football power and reigning champion of arguably the nation’s toughest conference (the Big 12)--the mighty Sooners of Oklahoma, a state known only for college football.

However, I barely got settled in the easy chair when, quicker than I could lament the poor upstart’s looming embarrassment in the Fiesta Bowl, the Boise boys had scored two touchdowns, just like that. Dumb luck.

That lead would disappear, but not before Oklahoma woke up to the fact that the other guys were only too real. Boise State blew an 18-point lead midway through the third quarter, and then twice rallied from seven-point deficits.

The huge upset seemed doomed, though, when a late pass by the underdogs got intercepted and returned for a touchdown, putting Oklahoma safely ahead with only a minute left to play in regulation.

Or so they thought. Then magic. On fourth down and with time running out, Boise State pitched a 50-yard school-ground hook and lateral pass for a tying touchdown, sending the game into overtime.

But wait. More magic was to come in overtime. First, Oklahoma got a touchdown on its first play from scrimmage, plus an extra point, surely wrapping up the victory..Again, it came down to fourth down for the underdogs—and another trick play. The quarterback star wackily ran in motion and a halfback took the snap and threw a touchdown pass into the end zone.

A final surprise from the upstarts iced the cake. They didn’t just kick the extra point. They instead went for two points and the win. A final trick play, as tried in every playground, again worked to perfection. The old Statue of Liberty handoff fooled everyone in the red helmets and gave the underdogs the deserved victory. Here’s to the Boise State Broncos and their gutsy coach. I’d say they were the best on earth during the just concluded bowl season.

And for all time? Well, that’s a long time. Besides, until this game, I had thought the best ever had been the victory a year ago in the BCS championship game by University of Texas over USC and the heroics of quarterback Vince Young, just named rookie of the year by the NFL for his play for the Tennessee Titans.

Remembrance fades fast also. Once the greatest game was the Baltimore Colts finally beating the New York Giants, with John Unitas for the old NFL championship. Then it was the NY Jets’ astounding playoff victory over the Colts, engineered by the biggest braggart quarterback ever, Joe Namath.

The mind drags up other memorable games. One for me was Oklahoma’s Orange Bowl 1956 victory over Maryland U. Oklahoma coach Bud Wilkinson devised a hurry-up strategy on offense, startling and befuddling the bigger and slower Terps and leading to copycats even today.

The most undiluted Redskins joy erupted for my family when aging quarterback Doug Williams performed miracles in the Super Bowl against Denver Bronco hero John Elway. If I remember correctly, the Redskins scored five touchdowns in the second quarter, after trailing 10-0. My memory might have been impaired, though, because of our tradition of celebrating with a stiff drink every time the Redskins scored. That game’s second half was a bore, I suppose, with the outcome already decided. It seemed a bit fuzzy. Must have been a faulty TV transmission, no doubt.

Back then there was a college game nearly as gratifying, although it would also wind up terribly one-sided, with my Texas Aggies doing better than they ever have since. It was a 1990 game in San Diego at the Holiday Bowl. A&M’s elite foe, Brigham Young University, had complained because they hadn’t been paired against a team with stronger credentials. The final score: A&M 65, BYU 14.

As a youngster, I had stood and cheered over Heisman Trophy winner Doak Walker’s exploits at SMU, when the single wing offense was still in vogue. And in a hometown game, the snooty Texas Tech Raid Raiders (then still trying to gain admittance to the Southwest Conference) finally consented to come to Abilene and play our Hardin-Simmons Cowboys from a lesser league. We had a slick quarterback, Model-T Ford by name, and he passed them silly. It wasn’t that the home team won, it was that Texas Tech got disgraced.

(Where do I get this "we" stuff? Well, my dear and long-departed mom was a yearbook class favorite in 1920 at then-named Simmons College in Abilene. So there. And much as I hate to reveal it, Univ. of Texas is in the family also, my errant Sis having graduated there in the 1940s.)

Admittedly, other sports have also had meaningful moments. One son even prefers NASCAR, for Pete’s sake. Where did I go wrong?

Trip to Denver? No way

“…and may all your Christmases be white.”.....

Maybe yours, not mine, thank goodness—although this time it was a close call for me and Carole Lee.

We were all set to surprise daughter and her family by dropping in on them for Christmas. Just one problem: They live in Denver.

You know what happened there. Tons of snow before and after Christmas, with the first blizzard hitting the night before we were to depart Dulles on United for Denver.

Many travelers got to Colorado shortly before we could and found themselves stranded for days at the airport.

Regardless, we felt lousy, sitting in a motel at Dulles mulling over that canceled flight. All packed and ready to go, and then facing the gloomy prospect of returning alone to our Stafford home sans even a Christmas tree, which I happily had left in the basement anticipating our being in Denver.

Then surprise! Southwest Airlines flew to the rescue. Our improvised Plan B for the holidays let us fly, not to Denver but to visit Chicago’s many relatives of Carole Lee.

And everything turned out right. Well, almost. The Denver wing of our family, while disappointed in not seeing us, stayed busy trying to dig out from the blizzards. And good old United gave us credit for the canceled flights if we fly again with them.

Our surprised Chicago hosts were also surprisingly welcoming. As usual they had plenty to share, especially the home-made cookies so delishiously in abundance.

Looking back on the whole escapade, I’m still in wonderment that Southwest still had two seats left on its Chicago flight from Dulles, on the same day we needed them. Then too, I only had to write down the reservation number I heard over the phone and head to the airport. The electronic ticketing worked slick as a whistle. And the tickets weren’t very expensive.

All that said, Southwest was no bed of roses. For one thing, the newcomer service’s gates at Dulles were at the far, far end of Concourse B, making us load up virtually in West Virginia.

The trek seems all the longer when one is lugging too many carry-ons plus pushing the wife in the wheel chair. My many workouts in the past months at the gym eased the chore, but not much.

Then upon arrival at Chicago’s Midway airport--a most convenient and accommodating facility--a bit of a problem arose. Southwest forgot to bring along our wheel chair. It turned out to be a short-term distress, though, since we got a loaner quickly for our stay in Chicago and got our own back before returning home.

Now let me let you in on a secret. A wheel chair, although a necessary evil for its occupant and propellant, does make air travel easier. It enabled us to go to the head of the long security waiting lines, saving valuable time and stressfulness. Also, we got pre-boarding privileges at the Southwest gate, enabling us to occupy bulkhead seats up front, affording ample leg room.

We also were lucky in getting a motel for our stay near the relatives. I had sought a large room with all the niceties, since we’d be there a week. A place we’d stayed the previous visit had none this time, and recommended instead a nearby Wingate.

Sound familiar? It’s a virtually identical copy of the new one in Garrisonville and Stafford’s first Wingate Inn, on Warrenton Road. Good places.

A highlight of our trip, besides the cookies and nice digs, was joining with John and JoAnn (Carole Lee’s sister) in celebrating Christmas Eve gift-giving with their six little grandkids.

Although the affair lasted too long, all the youngsters were miraculously well-behaved. Remarkable. And fun to play with. I taught one the hand-slapping game, belatedly realizing that his reflexes quickly became much quicker than my own. I hadn’t realized fully how much mine had slowed. Good lesson.

I pledged then and there to be more careful in doing things like driving the car. Speaking of which…

Arriving back at Dulles and riding the parking-lot bus to pick up my car, I suddenly remembered leaving my car keys in a bag still sitting on my wife’s lap back in the airport. A moment of consternation ensued before my lightning-fast reflexes swung into play, remembering that I had left a spare key in the car. Then came a further moment of worry before I made sure I remembered the combination to unlock the door via the keypad on the handle. Everything worked out OK.

So all in all, this very un-white Christmas season for us turned out to be memorable.