I have never been the athletic kind to start getting the heebie-jeebies about this time of the year. The time when the "2-a-days" start on the practice field & folks are making sure they have their season tickets bought for the upcoming football season.
I live in Nittany Lion Country...Happy Valley, PA...the home of Joe Paterno & Penn State. People around here just go stupid crazy over football, and it's going to be an ever more stupid-crazy fall this year since Penn State won a bowl game last year. Already, freshman enrollment is up 25% - higher than in the school's history. The University is encouraging incoming freshment to consider living in apartments instead of on campus.
I dread going to Wal-Mart on a day of a home game.
But I should not be all that worked up because my childhood is grounded in Friday night football traditions. And, yes, I get a little stupid-crazy over the twice-State Champions - the Booneville Bearcats - even before they make it to the play-offs in November.
Every Friday night my family would set aside anything else on our agenda & we would battle the lines of cars to Bearcat Stadium where we'd sit on splintery, old bleachers & shout ourselves hoarse for the town's only football team. And that town needed no other. Hardly a store was open, hardly a car was seen on Main & Broadway, and hardly were there anything going on in town except at Bearcat Stadium.
There, nearly 90% of Booneville's 3,200 residents jammed into the home stands to make enough thunderous noise to scare the britches off anyone from an opposing team long before the umpire blew the first whistle to start the coin toss.
I remember chilly evenings where I huddled over my cup of hot chocolate, watching to see if the Bearcats would inch that ball into the end zone. On the less intense moments, my lack of interest in athletics was seen more prominently as I would be running under the bleachers or goofing off with my friends who were playing in the pep band.
Yet I had to be in Bearcat Stadium every Friday night...and I had to be on the bus my church would take to attend every "Away" game, too. And, when the Bearcats would come away with another victory, I had to join in the blaring of horns as the dozens of cars filed out of the parking lot into town. It was such a rush to just lay on the horn for blocks on end & watch as folks would cheer from the sidewalks knowing that the mighty Booneville Bearcats stomped another victim.
Now, since I live 12,00 miles away from Bearcat Stadium, I must simply read about the thrill of the game or the agony of defeat in my weekly newspaper from Booneville that I get in the mail every week. And I read with a strange twinge within me as I see names I am very familiar with...names that used to be my classmates - except that they are the children of my old classmates. And they are keeping the spirit alive by wearing those colors of honor: The Purple And The Gold.
Now, where's my hot chocolate & popcorn?
