Football nights

I never quite understood why my parents seemed to regard certain recreational activities as work—going to the beach, when it was only a forty-five minute drive away, for example. Now that I have attained their ancient stature, I see a little better that every trip to the beach involves packing bathing suits and clean clothes to change into afterwards and towels and sand shovels and buckets and snacks and drinks in the cooler, good grief. Not to mention the sand in the car and the laundry afterwards. But even when it’s a low-key thing, I’m starting to understand why basically my parents seemed to really enjoy sitting on the couch after dinner.

We went to a Rolling Hills High football game last night, which we used to do all the time until we had Will. We generally get there late, since the games seem so maddeningly long if you’re there for the whole thing—I’m happy if we time it to arrive just before halftime, myself. Then we can listen to the band and watch the marchers swing those bright flags around, watch a bit of the game, and still head out early before the traffic picks up—unless the game is close, of course. I do love watching when one of those boys breaks away from the crowd, streaking across the field for the touch down, that wonderful long run that almost never happens anywhere else except high school football games.

But it’s so much more complicated with little kids. Last night William either wanted to be held all night—why do they make those bleachers so hard??—or later after the crowd cleared out a bit, he wanted to jump up and down the bleachers—and why do they have to make them out of concrete? It didn’t help that we sat on the very last row of the faculty nosebleed section, with this giant chain link fence looming behind us, a perfect view of the very far away ground below, complete with quite fascinating very tiny cars. I knew perfectly well that Will could never get over that fence, that he’d never even try, but still I found it rather nerve-wracking. It must be a residual I-know-there’s-a-cave-bear-somewhere-around-this-water-hole instinct.

Fortunately some generous souls—probably the booster club—sponsor a snack station for the faculty in the press box, so we were able to divert Will from jumping around the stands with potato chips and a seemingly endless supply of ice water with those tiny pebbly ice cubes that are so wonderful to drink. And even the one drink he finally did knock over after all the warnings didn’t actually spill on the people sitting in front of us.

Laura spent most of the game reading her library book, looking up whenever people started yelling to ask whether we’d scored. She took off for a bit to hang out with one of her friends, while Chris wandered around at intervals all night, a king greeted by his adoring subjects—those high school kids love to see their teachers outside of class. I sat with one of our friends, who at one point left her four-year old with us to take her two-year to the bathroom (who no doubt wouldn’t go before they left home). She seemed to disappear for ages, finally coming back after hauling that baby down and then back up again all those stadium steps because she didn’t know the press box also has a bathroom the faculty can use.

We had a good time, and our team—in that classic high school football way—obliterated the opposing team, thirty-something to zero. Will came home with one of those thunderstix souvenirs the ROTC give out, the two-foot balloon baseball bats so entertaining for beating people over the head with. I took a picture of Laura and her friend with the friend’s cell phone camera, which I embarrassingly enough had to be instructed in the use of. We came home, I threw in a load of laundry for good measure, and then we got everybody in the bed, but this morning I feel like—well, I feel like I was beaten over the head all night with a two-foot inflatable bat. Imagine that.