Weekend 3-Way: The Bandwagon

The Bandwagon.

def: to support the candidate, cause, movement, etc., that seems assured of success.
--Random House College Dictionary revised Edition © 1988.

[Sidenote: That's is the dictionary Mary Beth gave Bill for his bday years ago -- it's our downstairs dictionary. I got my dictionary when I graduated high school, from my employer at the Norwalk Book Shop. That one's next to my bed. I look at them both, every day. Okay, maybe not every day, but almost every day.]

Wikipedia, on the other hand, defines The Bandwagon thusly:

The Bandwagon effect, also known as social proof or "cromo effect" and closely related to opportunism, is the observation that people often do and believe things because many other people do and believe the same things. The effect is often pejoratively called herding instinct, particularly when applied to adolescents. People tend to follow the crowd without examining the merits of a particular thing.

Jeez . . . much less generous.

Anyway. I bring this up because although I'm a baseball fan, and a college basketball fan, and a tennis fan extraordinaire, I am not a pro hoops fan. Until tonight. Tonight I'm on the Pro Hoops Bandwagon.

And this weekend 3-way's question is: What bandwagon are you on?

Ellie:
The Boston Celtics and the Chicago Bulls are having an epic playoff series. Night after night, their games go into overtime. I am NOT a Boston sports fan (blech), but I've got a huge squishy soft spot in my heart for the Celtics' Ray Allen, because he was such a UConn superstud. When he played at UConn like he's playing in this series, my friend Christine called it the Ray Allen Show.

But the Bulls' Ben Gordon was a UConn superstud, too. And the Bulls' Joakim Noah? Tennis' Yannick Noah's son? Mistah and I lived/camped/campground-hosted near Gainesville the 2 years Noah was a superstud for the Gators, right there in Gainesville, and we listened around the campfire, night after night, as Noah helped lead Florida to back-to-back National Championships. I'm a huge Noah fan.

So. My point. I am officially on this particular NBA playoffs Bandwagon. Bulls/Celtics, Game 7. Go Celtics Bulls Celtics Bulls!

Beth:
Bandwagons, huh? Well I've been on a few, that's for sure. I'm not really a sports fan when it comes right down to it though. It's not that I dislike sports, it's just that I am completely content without them; they're an added extra, I guess you could say. Although there have been certain seasons that I have been very into certain teams. Anyway......I'm a yearly Padres and Chargers bandwagon member. I will see a few games during the regular season, but it they go to the playoffs, I do become more interested, mush more interested, like most people. And feel free to call me a bandwagon-er when this happens, it won't bother me a bit -- joining in when your hometown team goes to the big games is just showing civic pride, if you ask me.

I guess the other arena in which I join the bandwagon is music. I was on the Grateful Dead bandwagon for some years, which was a lot of fun, but then Jerry went and died, so that was the end of THAT. I guess I'm currently on the Ben Harper bandwagon, but to such a lesser extent. I just see him live when I can and listen to his music on a consistent basis. I'm not sure it that even counts.

Oh, and maybe my affinity for Bikram yoga could count as me being on a yoga bandwagon. It's not that I'm not open to other types of yoga, or other exercise, for that matter, it's just that Bikram works for me, and has changed a lot of things in my life for the better, so I do tend to talk it up. Have you tried it yet?

Jacquie:
Sadly, the bandwagon I’m currently driving is all about the piggie flu. It’s not that I’m overly concerned for myself or even for my family, although I’d prefer that none of us become incapacitated for a week. Especially on the cusp of the kids’ triumphant return to school after a whole month of incessant quality family time. But my job puts me in the position of having to make decisions for other people’s families, that that responsibility is weighing a little heavy as the city seems to be shutting down right around us. I do think it’s an over reaction and that in a couple of weeks everyone will chuckle at the fuss we made, but for right now I am fairly immersed in the business of reading and talking about and fretting about and riding the bandwagon of H1N1 hysteria. In fact, just this morning I received a very disturbing e-mail that reveals the actual moment when this terrible virus made the leap from swine to human variety: