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Two birds of a feather in football fanaticism
© St. Petersburg Times Monica Higgins trained her macaws to cheer her favorite football team. When the spirit moves them, the birds will squawk, "Touchdown!" and "Go Eagles!" But the big birds would not perform when I visited Monica's Clearwater home. Not even for a treat of peanuts would they talk. If this is an omen about how the Eagles will do Sunday against the Bucs, don't tell Monica and her husband, Joe. They bleed green. You would know their house by the team flag that flies out front. Inside, in the living room, they have a collection of eagles, in brass, wood and glass set up around their TV. They walk their dogs on Eagles' leashes. Joe gives Monica Eagles earrings, little dangling helmets or eagle heads, for gifts, and she gives him a watch with the Eagles logo on its face. They have Eagles playing cards and cigarette lighters. Their shower curtain is Eagles-issue. So are the bedsheets and the comforter. Of course they have the posters, the toy helmets, the bobble-headed statues of players. But did I mention the clothes hamper? They have kept the stubs from the game they attended last year at Raymond James Stadium when the Bucs played the Eagles. The stubs are next to the receipt for the bets they had a friend visiting in Las Vegas place for them that the Eagles will win the Super Bowl. Just goes to show you. You can take Monica and Joe Higgins out of Philadelphia, but you can't take Philadelphia out of them. They met at a Pinellas bar, now closed, named -- what else? -- Phillies. An Eagles game was on the tube. Came their wedding day, and "Eagles" was inscribed, along with their names, on their wedding bands. They spent their honeymoon watching the Eagles in Jacksonville. Despite their obsession, Joe and Monica could be somebody you know. Joe, 51, is a clerk at the Sunset Point post office. Monica, 45, raises birds and does nails on the side. It's a nice life. But the life has certain priorities. Monica: "We like the Bucs, but deep down, the Eagles are No. 1 and the Bucs are No. 2." Joe: "It's nothing about the team or the town. Try to impress that point." Okay, Joe, so I'm trying. As in, some things the beaches and the breeze off Clearwater will never replace is your memory. How your roots and your religion -- Joe is Irish, and Monica Polish, and both are Catholic -- marked you forever. How there was only one way to be -- loud, long and unstoppable -- when you cheered from the cheap seats at the Vet. And how, no matter where you were, the beer coming out of the tap had to be Rolling Rock. Monica will be serving it Sunday at game time, along with wings, Joe's favorite, and slices of pepperoni and cheese. "I wanted to have my friends who are Bucs fans," she said. "But I thought, gee, it's going to be awkward. When it's over, one couple will feel better than the other." So Joe and Monica will be alone Sunday. "It's going to be a very tight game," Joe predicted. "It won't be a runaway." And if the Bucs win? Joe and Monica will, quite easily, switch their allegiances and cheer for the Bucs on that unimaginable day in San Diego. They were even thinking of flying out for the Super Bowl. But it's hard to buy tickets at $1,700 a pop on a mail clerk's salary. So, in the event the Bucs go all the way, Joe and Monica will be on the sofa that Sunday. They'll be cheering for their adopted hometown while wearing the Bucs T-shirts that hang in the closet far behind the long line of green shirts that, now and forever, are in first place. -- You can reach Mary Jo Melone at mjmelone@sptimes.com or (813) 226-3402.
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