seriously addicted

-----------It was a very weird trip; [excerpt, Hunter Thompson]...Actually, the reason was...I was the only one in the press corps that evening who claimed to be as seriously addicted to pro football as Nixon himself. I was also the only out-front, openly hostile Peace Freak; the only one wearing old Levis and a ski jacket, the only one (no, there was one other) who'd smoked grass on Nixon's big Greyhound press bus, and certainly the only one who habitually referred to the candidate as "the Dingbat."

So I still had to credit the bastard for having the balls to choose me -- out of the fifteen or twenty straight / heavy press types who'd been pleading for two or three weeks for even a five-minute interview -- as the one who should share the back seat with him on this Final Ride through New Hampshire.

But there was, of course, a catch. I had to agree to talk about nothing except football. "We want the Boss to relax," Ray Price told me, "but he can't relax if you start yelling about Vietnam, race riots or drugs. He wants to ride with somebody who can talk football." He cast a baleful eye at the dozen or so reporters waiting to board the press bus, then shook his head sadly. "I checked around," he said. "But the others are hopeless -- so I guess you're it."

"Wonderful," I said. "Let's do it."

We had a fine time. I enjoyed it -- which put me a bit off balance, because I'd figured Nixon didn't know any more about football than he did about ending the war in Vietnam. He had made a lot of allusions to things like "end runs" and "power sweeps" on the stump but it never occurred to me that he actually knew anything more about football than he knew about the Grateful Dead.

But I was wrong. Whatever else might be said about Nixon -- and there is still serious doubt in my mind that he could pass for Human -- he is a goddamn stone fanatic on every facet of pro football.
--------------------- [end excerpt]
{Fear And Loathing: On The Campaign Trail '72,
by Hunter S. Thompson. Copyright, 1973.
Warner Books Inc., New York, N.Y.}
---------------------------

Yesterday when I was posting here, I was "swimming" (mmmmh) in another passage from this book and "George Romney" is mentioned: Google answered the question in my mind -- any relation to the current Romney in politics -- "Mit" ... "Mitt"?? Yes. George was Mitt's father.
(They're Mormons.)
Listen to this, from "Wikipedia" [quote]:
[George] Romney entered politics by participating in a state constitutional convention to rewrite the Michigan Constitution during 1961 - 1962. He was elected Governor of Michigan in 1962 and was re-elected by increasingly large margins in 1964 and 1966. Romney worked to overhaul the state's financial and revenue structure, culminating in Michigan's first state income tax, and greatly expanded the size of state government.

Romney was a strong supporter of the American Civil Rights Movement while governor. He briefly represented moderate Republicans against conservative Republican Barry Goldwater during the 1964 U.S. presidential election.

... Once elected president, Nixon appointed Romney Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Romney's ambitious plans for housing production increases for the poor, and for open housing to desegregate suburbs, were modestly successful but often thwarted by Nixon. Romney left the administration at the start of Nixon's second term in 1973. Returning to private life, Romney advocated volunteerism and public service....
[end Wiki quote]
Interesting resumé. Takes most of the "scary" off him, from the Mormon thing.

-30-