Gamin'

Last night, we went to a football game. But not just any football game -- this was the Opener, the first game of the season. The home team (Yay, team, go team go, fight team fight) traveled to another area school, over in West The Hell and Gone, where we paid three bucks for the privilege of sitting surrounded by home team adherents who would call out helpful advice to their classmates on the team ('Hey,Barry!. BARRY! .Hey, man, you suck!'). Its quite delightful to see a nine foot three pile of football equipment turn and glower in your direction. .The game announcer was predictably partisan, shouting out in glee whenever they did anything right ('Yay, Your Home Team didn't drop the footb - oh. Well, Yay, Anyway!') while glossing over what our team did ('Will the owner of the 59 Studebaker turn off his lights, and, oh yeah, the opposing team just scored fourteen touchdowns'). We had gone because this was the first showing for the color guard and band (AHEM, the band boosters say, The Band....and the color guard), and we wanted to Support Our Daughter. And what the heck, it was fun.

I learned some things. For one, I was amazed at how - sleek - these middle school girls can be. From a distance, they looked quite sophisticated, almost adult. It wasn't till you talked to them that their basic kiddishness surfaced -- I asked two girls about their home-made 'football jerseys', and they giggled as they explained them to me. Quite in constrast to image projected by the lacy camisoles they were wearing as outerwear, not to mention the generous amounts of cleavage they'd occasionally show. Kind of weird -- as a guy, I thought 'hot diggety'; as an adult, I thought 'These are kids, for heavens sake'; and as a father, I thought 'Good god, I hope my daughter doesn't get the idea this kind of thing is okay!"

Plus, my wife explained some of the basic football concepts to me. I'd never understood what the significance of 'first and ten' was.... and I still don't know what a 'touchback' is (I think it's something that the Catholic Church frowns upon).

I'm glad we went. And, oh yeah. We won.

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Update: This morning, I brought my daughter and another girl over to the school for an all-day practice. My daughter was sniffling -- she said someone had brought a cold to the color guard group -- and when the other girl got in the car, she asked me not to move for a few minutes. "I think I'm going to puke", she said. Take all the time you need!