YACK on: A post-NFLlife
Grant Sanders
You can blame me. I jinxed the New England Patriots two weeks ago in my column by writing about how the Giants versus the Pats in the 2008 Super Bowl XLII looked like an exact mirror image of the Pats versus the Rams in the 2002 Super Bowl XXXVI. Fate took a hard look in that mirror and saw something missing - a comefrom behind win for the Giants. I'm sorry. It was all my doing. Next time the Patriots are in the Super Bowl I'm going to write columns entitled "recipes where the main ingredients begin with

the letter "V," or "36 ways to irk a

selectman" and leave the sports talk to writers and sportscasters like Bob Ryan, Peter King, Bob Lobel and Shep.

So now that the season is over, one question looms large in the minds of the red-blooded men of the island: What the heck are we going to do with all this spare time on Sundays until pre-season starts up in August? No more football is a tough thing to deal with. No more football means painful withdrawal symptoms. (And don't go saying that football is not over by pointing to next week's Pro Bowl. The Pro Bowl is not football. It's a waste of good Hawaiian sunshine and serves only as a means of suffering a career ending injury near or on a beach.)

Well one thing we men can do is get re-acquainted with our families. For those of you who are a little foggy on the definition of this word, "family," it's a word that pertains to those people who are generally smaller and shorter than you, living in your home. In my house there are two people who I believe are my children, a woman who I seem to remember marrying 17 years ago and a dog. The dog I remember quite well. He's the one with the smelly ears who keeps stealing my orange Crocs and holding them ransom for dog treats. Plus his name is on his chest. Kind of hard to miss. (It would help if everyone in my house wore name tags during football season. Hmmm.)

There are a number of activities that we can all do with our families and our dogs to pass the time between now and the NFLDraft (April 26-27) and then from the Draft to the beginning of pre-season (Likely to be Friday Aug. 8, but as we all know the schedule has not been compiled yet).

And here they are:

1. Go for a walk. You might not know it, but Nantucket has over 38,000 miles of walking trails. Okay, I made that number up. But it's somewhere close to that. If you make a small donation to the Conservation Foundation they'll give you a nice map of their middle moors trails (or you can just go walking in the moors and try not to get lost). The Land Bank also has a wonderful and expertly crafted color map of their walking trails. I'm always amazed at how few people are out in the Nantucket wilderness on nice days. Sometimes Seven (my dog) and I don't see anyone at all after an hour or two of walking. So get out there.

2. Irk a selectman. Or any public official. There's nothing more fun than to throw stink bombs into the political process by calling committee and board members to the carpet and second guessing their decisions in a public forum. Hi-jinks nearly always ensue. The forum for your Irksomeness can be a letter to the editor. A series of long and angry posts on YACKon.com or a trip into town or the cavernous meeting space at Two Fairgrounds Road to voice your disillusionment in person during the mandatory public comment period. It's fun to watch your elected officials turn red, raise their voice or roll their eyes. And read about it in the paper the next day. And best of all, it gets you directly involved in the political process, and isn't that what we need? More public involvement? Even if the involvement comes from people who are angst-ridden, disillusioned, uninformed, unruly and unfocussed.

3. Learn to play the accordion. On second thought, don't.

4. Become a Bruins fan. On second thought, don't.

5. Start a dinner party club. This is a fun way to pass the time in the off-season. Just get four couples together and every other week, take turns cooking a meal and throwing a big dinner party. You can add a theme to the dinner parties to make it even more fun. For example, you can make a rule that the ingredients for each meal have to be chosen at the Stop and Shop while blindfolded. Or you can only cook food that begins with the letter "V." Hope you like Venison Vindalu. Or, diners must recite a poem before each course. Limericks do not count. This pastime is an excellent substitute for football as it involved eating and drinking. Plus it might also involve a career-ending injury if you are the one wearing the blindfold.

6. Clean out the shed. I know it's the last thing you want to do. It's the last thing I want to do as well. But it's not going to clean itself out. One of the problems with cleaning out the shed is that it eventually just gets filled up with junk you can't seem to throw away all over again. So why bother? I don't know. It's one of those mysteries of life I've yet to get a handle on. That, and the question of why Germans are selling and buying a cheeseburger in a can. It boggles the mind.

7. Become a Celtics fan. Until recently this was not a viable option, but the addition of Kevin Garnett to the lineup has netted a Celtics team that could… go…. all… the… way…!

Oops. Hope I didn't just jinx them.

YACK on. I

Grant Sanders is the Host of YACK, the Nantucket Online Community at yackon.com and he will still proudly wear his Patriots hat in public. His views are his alone and therefore do not necessarily reflect the editorial staff of the Nantucket Independent. Or that woman at home who he seems to remember is his wife.