The sheer rumor of any event pitting Red vs. Blue right now gives me an aura that my head is about to implode.

Having cast my ballot out of a sense of shame and obligation, I can say for the first time since the third-grade mock election in which I checked a box for the Gipper that I had no emotional attachment to Tuesday’s referendum on George W. Bush.

My belief in the American people strongly outweighs my faith in whatever leader those people anoint in a glorified episode of “American Idol.” God is my pilot and Ted Nugent is my president. So there.

I didn’t care who won. Which segues splendidly into the next explosion of the crayon box: Saturday’s Pine Tree Conference semifinal showdown between the Edward Little Red Eddies and Lewiston Blue Devils.

See, it’s already starting. The mother of a Lewiston offensive lineman just slammed down her coffee mug, threw the newspaper across the room and cursed me for my obvious favoritism in naming EL first.

No worries. Somewhere in the shadow of Walton Field, there’s an EL enthusiast already adorning my rakishly handsome mug with devil horns and a cartoon balloon in which I declare my affinity for some deviant behavior.

And so it goes.

The rare happenstance of a historically significant Lewiston-EL football game (There, now we’re even. Happy?) brings out the absolute best in our student-athletes. It also inspires a shrill minority of supposed grown-ups to verbalize their fragile self-esteem.

We heard it in 2002, after EL’s Will Claxton kicked the game-winning field goal in double overtime to clinch the PTC title.

“I wonder if the Lewiston Sun Journal will even cover the state championship game now,” one wag wondered aloud, with full, sneering, italicized emphasis on the city’s name, even though it was dropped from the newspaper’s mast head more than a decade earlier.

One of our reporters – our current editor, come to think of it – heard it a few years earlier when he judiciously left a Devil off our all-state basketball team. A member of the kid’s family mailed a missive, scrawled in angry capital letters, to the beleaguered beat writer.

“Maybe you guys should change your name to the Anti-Lewiston Sun Journal,” he or she zinged.

Little secret No. 1: None of us, well, except for maybe that scurrilous LHS grad Justin Pelletier, give a tinker’s damn who wins whenever Beelzebub and Casper collide.

That won’t stop a select few with time on their ink-stained hands from measuring column inches and photo sizes. Or latching into one innocuous word in a podcast. Or quoting verbatim something a certain columnist wrote four years ago, even as they mutter that he should seek employment that involves a fry-o-lator.

It’s worth noting that I have covered two decades worth of Jay-Livermore Falls football, baseball and basketball games and never once encountered this brand of mean-spiritedness or headline envy. Not one time. Impressive, when you consider that at least in a football context, that rivalry has been far more hotly contested and appears to mean more to the participants 20, 30 and 50 years hence.

More little secrets: I like both your schools. I deeply respect all your kids. I root equally hard for Jared Turcotte and Troy Barnies to succeed at the University of Maine. If I’ve met two higher quality young men in my travels, I can’t think of their names offhand.

And there’s so very much to like about this playoff rematch.

It’s one more chance to watch Cody Goddard and Wesley Myers.

Each has been the physical and spiritual leader of his team. As such, both have borne the weight of having everything from on-field performance to attitude and facial expressions examined. Both have exceeded every expectation.

It’s an opportunity to appreciate playmakers by the half-dozen on both sides.

You can never be sure if Goddard will be flinging deep to Shane Ciriello or Sean Daigle or Dominique Bailey. It’s even money whether Buddy Foss or Dylon Therrien will break their inevitable big play either off-tackle or on the receiving end of a tight spiral in the flat. On the Devils’ side, just when you think Ronnie Turner is about to slap the ball into Myers’ bread basket for the 23rd consecutive play, he drops the ball 50 yards on a dime into the hands of Chuck Faletra or Tyler Lussier.

It’s a chance to see grinding, gang-tackling defense at its zenith.

Say what you want about the points Lewiston and EL have surrendered this season. They have a nasty knack for the big play. Look no further than last week’s fumble returns by Bruce Gerry and Grady Burns of EL, both for touchdowns. Jeff Keene of Lewiston has visited the end zone twice on runbacks this season. No doubt Myers and Faletra are capable of the same.

It’s a dream matchup with the nightmarish subplot that one team will be banished to basketball, hockey, skiing or indoor track season after the final gun.

My only rooting interests are for a game none of us will ever forget and a winner healthy enough to give Lawrence headaches next week.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go lock out all the news channels on my TV and pick out a color-neutral wardrobe for Saturday.