The Merry Time Bar and Grill in Astoria is an excellent place to watch football, pro or college, particularly if you don't have cable television.

Here we go again. Football season in America. Grown men wearing oversized jersey and screaming in public? Are we ready? I’m not. Wasn’t the Super Bowl just concluded?

I’m sitting in the Merry Time Bar and Grill in Astoria on a Sunday morning and some nondescript NFL preseason game blares away. The announcers crank out one cliché after another, but for some reason, I find the trite commentary comforting. “Nickel package” and “He’s good in space” sound like working class poetry of the gridiron to my ears.

The Merry Time is an excellent place to watch football, pro or college, particularly if you don’t have cable television like me. The food is good and inexpensive in here, the service friendly and efficient. On my most recent visit a server also gave me a homemade bookmark and a piece of cake from her going away party. When I asked her about the impending football season, she just shrugged and said, “I could care less.”

My only reservation about the Merry Time is this: Any potential customer should be forewarned when a Notre Dame game airs in the bar. There is a certain male fan bedecked in Irish clothing from head to toe who stands up from his table and screams and motions “first down!” every time Notre Dame’s offense registers a first down — even when they are trailing by three touchdowns in the third quarter.

The man does this for an entire three-hour telecast. His wife just sits there and drinks her beer in silence.

It is quite possibly the most obnoxious boisterous gesture I have ever witnessed in a bar. But then again, it was so memorably obnoxious that I’m writing it about now and wondering when Notre Dame plays its opener because I might just have to see him in action again. With a cocktail for the sideshow, of course. It’s actually better watching than a football game on television.

Matt Love lives in Astoria and is the author/editor of 14 books about Oregon, including “The Great Birthright: An Oregon Novel.” They are available at coastal bookstores and through www.nestuccaspitpress.com