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| No one in this picture made my top five, but the conversations that are held when we all get together are priceless. |
By Will Brown
As we all know the Super Bowl was a rout from the
opening seconds of the game. Since the football was not as compelling as we all
assumed, the conversation meandered in many directions during the course of the
game.
It’s so much more fun to watch FOX when it’s someone else being blitzed & sacked! #SuperBowl
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) February 3, 2014
Sometime during the second half, after discussions
about Hillary Clinton, Bruno Mars and the lackluster commercials, someone
asked: If you could have dinner with five people, living or dead, who would
they be?
I chose Christ, Nelson Mandela, Diego Maradona and
then gave up on the exercise. The game was back on and our collective attention
returned to the Broncos getting bucked off the pedestal they were placed on.
For whatever reason, I
was reminded of that conversation earlier this week, decided to finish out my
quintet
and chose to wonder who would make the cut for those closest to me.
Christ took what most of us would consider lunch for two and fed 5,000; Mandela was imprisoned for 27 years and was not bitter and Maradona was the cocaine-snorting, binge-eating, soccer savant whose life may be the inspiration for the Dos Equis commercials.
Christ took what most of us would consider lunch for two and fed 5,000; Mandela was imprisoned for 27 years and was not bitter and Maradona was the cocaine-snorting, binge-eating, soccer savant whose life may be the inspiration for the Dos Equis commercials.
After Argentina was humbled by a 1-0 loss to
Cameroon in first game of the 1990 World Cup, the miniature maestro quipped: "I cured the Italians of racism, didn't I? The
whole stadium was shouting for Cameroon. Wasn't that nice?”
If he could conjure a comment like
that after the embarrassment of losing to a team that was a 500-1 underdog,
just imagine what he would say at a dinner conversation.
If there was more time, I would have considered Barack Obama, Alexander the Great, Beethoven, Ed Bradley, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Thomas DeSaille Tucker, Thurgood Marshall, Stephen F. Austin and Chief Osceola for the final two positions.
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| Thomas DeSaile Tucker, Courtesy: State Archives of Florida. |
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| Bradley, Austin and Beethoven. |
Obama, Marshall and Bradley were trailblazers with
undeniable impacts on American politics, law and journalism. Fitzgerald was the
writer whose work inspired me to keep writing, Tucker founded the university
that has been central to so many good memories and friendships, Austin and Osceola were historical figures from the two states I’ve resided in and
Beethoven is someone who was unable to enjoy his own genius later in life.
Of course it’s a hypothetical exercise that is
little more than conversation filler. Nonetheless, it is a porthole into the
psyche.
Dinner is the most intimate meal of the day. Who we
share it with says something about us, as well as the company we keep.
Laughs and liveliness,
-Wb
