The Bell Was Rung

I live in Central Oregon.  On the east side of the Cascade Mountains, this high desert area is quite different from our neighbors on the west side of the state.  It is sunny most of the time and it can get really cold here year-round.  It is not uncommon to experience all kinds of weather: rain, sun, wind, snow, hail in one afternoon and we have even watched Fourth of July fireworks in the snow.

But snow is not the only thing in the air these days in Central Oregon. 

There is also joy, civic pride and a whole lot of smug.

Could it be because the University of Oregon football team is doing so well this season?  
Or could it be a bit of leftover merriment from when the Oregon State University baseball team won its second-in-a-row College World Series?

Maybe.

But the main reason the folks here are strutting around like they just sprouted wings is because one of our own made national news and this time, it was for a nice reason.

The Major League Baseball World Series was OWNED by Jacoby Ellsbury.

Neener, neener, neener.

That player number 46 you saw in the outfield and on base repeatedly is from Madras, Oregon, a little town of 6,000 just northeast of Bend. 
We could not care less which team he was playing for; when Ellsbury was up to bat, Central Oregon froze in place as if the entire population was playing Red Light/Green Light.
Telephones were turned off, unplugged and thrown under sofas.  Traffic ceased to exist. 
Even the birds in my backyard stopped bonking themselves into the window. 
Afterwards, when the commercials were aired in between innings, the toilets of Central Oregon flushed as one.

Not only was Jacoby Ellsbury the first Navajo to ever play in any Major League Baseball game, let alone start a World Series game; he was also the first Central Oregonian. 
That’s a really good thing because I’m not sure we’re strong enough to support more than one baseball hero at a time.  As of the Monday morning after Boston swept the Colorado Rockies, the town was spent.

Now, the whole country not only knows Jacoby Ellsbury, they love him because of the Taco Bell promotion: Steal a Base; Steal a Taco!

Why Taco Bell chose to give away tacos when the Red Sox are from Beantown is a puzzle to me.  They should have given away Pintos ‘N Cheese or bean burritos.  Perhaps they were afraid of the terrible repercussions of the entire nation consuming such a volatile food at the same time. 
But what do you expect from a company that has talking food in their commercials?  Why would it compel you to eat their food if you know it recorded an advertisement the day before? 
Maybe the ad execs at Taco Bell should cut back on the caffeine if they can hear their food talking to them. 
It probably has something to do with the Red Sox choosing to make their logo out of footwear.

But because Jacoby Ellsbury stole second base in the fourth inning of the second game, Taco Bell promised free tacos to anyone who went to their restaurants between 2:00 and 5:00 pm on October 30th.  That’s 160 calories with ten grams of fat for every American and you know just how much we all need that. 
Del Taco’s regular tacos have about the same nutritional statistics as Taco Bell’s and even the Jack-in-the-Box mystery-meat tacos are in the same range. 
But as far as I know, neither Del Taco nor Jack-in-the-Box own any baseball teams so if you want free tacos from them, you are flat out of luck.

But before the Food Police get all up in arms with the panties in a wad (and you cannot believe how unattractive that is) about the role fast food plays in the obesity in America (www.obesityinamerica.org is a real website,) just remember that you were only supposed to get one free taco. 
If you made it your mission of the day to drive to every Taco Bell within a 50-mile radius of your home, you were not playing by the rules and should possibly find a hobby or two to fill your time.

There were no worries about the free fat in a shell in Madras, Oregon because there is no Taco Bell there.  We only have five Taco Bells in all of Central Oregon and the logistics of transporting 6,000 Taco Bell tacos were too overwhelming. 

But that’s okay. 
The folks in Madras don’t mind. 
They’re too busy feeding crow to anyone who ever doubted Jacoby Ellsbury. 

Neener, neener, neener.