WHY FOLLOW THE NUMBERS

An average of 90,000 fans attend football games each year at the Cleveland sports stadium. This number is twice the average of baseball attendance, four times the average of basketball and hockey. Footballs’ numbers obviously betray its popularity. Even locally, a sports equipment technician is needed to check over nuts, bolts and the air pressure of football helmets at the close of a high school playing season.

About 20,000,000 people patronize some Walt Disney theme parts each year. The same number is the average take at theaters for movie-going each week and for T.V, viewing of network programs. Such data demonstrate what entertains the masses.

I never suspected. I never cared. I won’t attend a ballpark or theme park in my lifetime because of lack of interest in both the venues and the foolish expenditure of money. Even though these decisions mean that tailgating and its accompanying rowdy behavior will pass me by, each won’t be missed. My choices mean that I do not follow the laws of large numbers. Marching to that "different, distant drummer" championed by writer Henry David Thoreau, I have long, lonely rows to hoe.