MOULTRIE — So the lights went out during the Super Bowl for a few minutes. Big deal.

With all of the analyses that have followed that event, you would think that when the lights came back on, quarterback Colin Kaepernick was nowhere to be found or maybe someone hid the football.

It’s amazing what makes news in our great land. Now don’t get me wrong here...the lights going out was noteworthy. I said “noteworthy”, not a three-part dissertation on electrical engineering soon to become a full length movie starring Tommy Lee Jones and Morgan Freeman.

I really don’t believe there was any kind of conspiracy involved in this. As was so aptly pointed out in the movie “Forrest Gump,” “stuff happens.” With all the hoopla, one might have thought that Ray Lewis had shot the lights out.

Immediately commentators started asking, “How will this affect the players?”

I’m willing to bet that not a single player out there sleeps with a night light. I didn’t see a single one take out his teddy bear and curl up under the bench.

What do you mean, how will this affect the players? They will keep loose just like they do in practice when they are not out on the field. When play resumes, the field will still be 100 yards long and 50 yards wide for both teams. They are professionals. Besides, half the lights were still on. It’s not like they couldn’t find the Gatorade.

One announcer said he didn’t think this little incident would affect New Orleans chances of hosting future Super Bowls. Well I would hope not, anymore than I would think one of the players getting hold of some bad oysters would prejudice any such decision.

Again, stuff happens.

Was there pre-knowledge of an electrical problem and who knew about it? That was a tandem question I read in one report of the incident. In the vein of a political scandal: “What did you know and when did you know it?”

I doubt a single viewer’s life was impacted one way or another with the lights being out for those few minutes. Mine was not. Well, let me rethink that. I used that break as an excuse to heat up some more “pigs in a blanket,” which did impact me just a smidgen.

And if you want to know what a smidgen is, you’ll have to ask my friend Bill Smith at the breakfast club because he always asks for just a “smidgen” more coffee.

One commentator suggested the delay might affect the Ravens’ momentum. Apparently that was not the case because when the clock ran out, the Ravens had the most points on the board, and that’s how they decide the winner in these contests , I’ve noticed.

At least the game was not highlighted with a wardrobe malfunction and no one was texting photos of their appendages. At least none have come to light yet.

One announcer kept saying to the viewers, “as soon as we get word as to what happened, we’ll tell you.” I suppose they offered this assurance for those who might have thought a terrorist attack was in the making. You know some people are just wired that way. Everything is a conspiracy.

  The only thing that should have made this incident the news item that it became is if someone discovered that the Superdome folks had paid only half of their utility bill, and the power company was trying to set an example about prompt payments.

Chances are, this issue will have gone away by the weekend, which was about six and a half days overstated in the first place.

And I’m willing to bet that when those lights came back on, not a person watching thought of Thomas Edison and said, “What a guy he was!”

(Dwain Walden is editor/publisher of The Moultrie Observer, 985-4545. Email: dwain.walden@gaflnews.com)