SCHS Football

I could hear the crowd over at the high school from Nell’s yard so I knew I had to go watch the local football game tonight and it was great. Crazy to think this was dad’s field of glory. I was standing next to this old guy who was filming every play so we started talking and he seemed to know every stat of every player on the team. I went on to discover his grandsons both played on the team, number 9 and number 6, so his heart was in it to win it. He was telling me how, “That black fellow down yonder in the white shirt’s been working with my grandson’s since they was 4 and 5. Can you imagine a 5 year old passin’ the football? I mean passin! He’s a real good feller, real good coach too. Made those kids tough as nails, that’s what makes a goof ball player, you gotta be tough.”
They had the halftime show marching band and majorettes and everything and I guess this was mom’s glory field too because she was the head majorette back in her day. Everyone in town was there. I realized that for most people around here they grow up, live, and die right here in town and they’re happy as peaches about it, maybe. I could never be so content but I can appreciate that other people can. I’ve seen too much to think a life of isolation is a possibility for me, I’m more of a pause- and go, pause- and go, but I dig the people it works for. Small towns are a good slice of life. Everybody’s from the same place. Some people graduate high school and become policeman and some people graduate and become teachers, or bankers, or janitors, or farmers, or mechanics, or provosts or light salesmen, but they’re all cheering the same high school where they all came from on Friday nights. Single organisms greater than the sum of all its parts that account for a little bit of everything and use a little bit of everybody to be what they are.


I forgot my camera dadgumit, but here’s a list of details I kept:

The marching band covering ‘One Love’, flaming batons, rampant jailbait, hand written love notes on the back of kids hands, zits, coaches with lippers in, kid couples holding hands, older guys walking around trying to look cool and not cutting it, ball boys, pissed off dad’s, brother’s on the team, ma’s and pa’s, sideline politics, local advertising, band kids sweating like crazy, kids negotiating after game curfews, outmatched positions, pom-poms, sequins, missed field goals, stat boys, stressed out head cheerleaders, cub scouts lowering the American flag, sticking out because of my non-accent.

We won 12-0.