600 Hours of Edward

Seattle Seahawks, who stink. The Dallas Cowboys ought to win that game, although at this point it’s all conjecture. I prefer facts.
    I guess what I am saying is this: I have seen a lot of Dallas Cowboys games with my father, even when you factor in the relatively few of them in the past eight years and 106 days. It will be odd to think that he is no longer here, on the day that the Dallas Cowboys play the New York Giants, who don’t stink at all. I wish my father were here. He hated the New York Giants.
    – • –
    I take my morning newspaper—which tells me that yesterday’s high was thirty-one and yesterday’s low was nineteen—with my corn flakes, my orange juice, and my fluoxetine. The
Billings Herald-Gleaner
also tells me that today’s high will be forty-one and the low will be thirty-three, but that’s not as valuable to me as the first two numbers. The first two numbers are facts; the other two are just a forecast. I prefer facts.
    Judging by the
Billings Herald-Gleaner
, there is a lot of interest in the presidential race, which will be voted upon Tuesday, twodays from today. I have not been paying a whole lot of attention to the presidential race, if you must know. Politics of any sort are hard to be interested in when you care about facts as much as I do. Presidential candidates often seem much more interested in what is known as “spin”—that is, the twisting of facts to support a position beneficial to them. This is actually praiseworthy in politics. It is considered an art form. I cannot understand that, and so rather than letting it make me crazy (a word I do not love, yet one that is accurate when I allow myself to fret about politics), I simply tune it out. I have been alive for the presidencies of seven of the forty-three presidents in this country’s history—Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and Bush the younger—and as far as I can tell, not one of them has made much of a difference in the important things I care about: the high and low temperatures,
Dragnet
, Dallas Cowboys football, R.E.M., or Matthew Sweet. Although, you could make the argument that the Republican presidents inspire angrier music from R.E.M. If you wish to make that argument, I will not dispute it.
    Much of the attention on this presidential race is on a man named Barack Obama, who apparently would become the first black president in United States history—although a lot of people seem to think he is an Arab. I don’t care if he’s an Arab or if he’s black. It’s not like the forty-three white men who have been president have all been great shakes. (I love the slang term “great shakes.”)
    – • –
    Because the Dallas Cowboys’ game does not start until 2:15 p.m., I have decided to embark on a project this morning. I am going to rate the ten greatest Dallas Cowboys games I saw with my father. I think it will be fun to count something like that, and I like remembering good times with my father.
    I am not going to include Super Bowl victories among the ten greatest games. Let’s face it: The Dallas Cowboys have won five Super Bowls, and so that would take up almost half of my list right there. I wouldn’t count the Dallas Cowboys’ first Super Bowl victory, 24–3 over the Miami Dolphins in Super Bowl VI, as I was too young to have a memory of the game. I feel confident that my father watched it, as he loved the Dallas Cowboys, and because I was just a little boy, barely three years old (I was three years and seven days old on January 16, 1972, when Super Bowl VI was played), there is a good chance I was with him, but I don’t know for sure. It’s conjecture. I prefer facts.
    – • –
    After clearing away the breakfast dishes, I head into the spare bedroom and fire up the computer. My project flows quickly.
    TEN MOST MEMORABLE COWBOYS GAMES
    A memoir of football-watching with my father
    By Edward M. Stanton Jr.
    Game number 1: November 28, 1974
    Result: Dallas Cowboys, 24; Washington Redskins, 23
    What happened: Rookie quarterback Clint Longley, playing in place of the injured Roger Staubach, threw a fifty-yard touchdown pass to Drew Pearson with twenty-eight seconds remaining to beat the hated Washington Redskins and keep them from clinching a playoff berth. Clint Longley also had a thirty-five-yard touchdown pass to Billy Joe DuPree.
    Why I remember it: We watched the game in Texas, with my Grandpa Sid and Grandma Mabel. My fatherand I had been on a road trip together, and we had