Alright, well as many of you know, I grew up in what I always called or thought of as a semi- but mild football town. My evidence to this was that the town almost shut down on Friday nights for football games, which could be reputed due to the fact that the streets rolled up at 6pm anyway. However, fast-food places would, because it was obviously good for business, stay open for extra hours until well after the games were over, shops would post signs in their windows, "Go Wolverines!" etc. Other things, were just the town's general attitude when it came to football games. No biggie, I mean I went I'm not really complaining it was something fun to do on a Friday night; it was a social event.
Recently I had the opportunity to witness a true football town experience. Without naming the town I was in, except to say that is in the tri-state area, my wife and I arrived to the school/stadium quiet a bit early, a trait my late father would be glad to know that I have picked-up. We still did not arrive as early as I would have liked, but we had little trouble (probably be cause we had VIP parking) yeah VIP parking at a High School Football game... news to me. Anyway, so when we arrive, there are already people parking on the road leading to the school, well outside the gates, surprise surprise, Dade County never parked that far as far as I can remember. I know it is normal to not see any grass anywhere on school property and occasionally when playing North Sand Mtn they would park road side by the entrance but still on school grounds, when a DCHS football game is going on. Nope, here they were already parking way out off school grounds.
Once we got past the gates I found the VIP parking lots. Driving through to find our place, we noticed the most amazing thing I never thought I would see at a High-school football game, Tailgating. There was not just one or two people, nearly every car we passed was tailgating, the ones that were not tailgating themselves were partaking in their neighbors grill.
After we find our, VIP parking place, we then collect our belongings and work our way to the ticket box we hand over our VIP cards, not expecting to get them back, we did. Cool! This is like a season pass! So we then begin the arduous task of finding a seat not infected with too many teenagers that look like they would chat or create too much of a ruckus.
Oh geez I sound like an old man. Being a HS Band Geeks, I also wanted to get a seat that met my aforementioned criteria yet still provided a good view of the band while on the field. I thought, as always, mid-field is a good spot to watch the band. Oh wait, from forty to forty, is, hold on to your hats -- get this, Season Ticket holders-only seating. Yeah ok wow! This is a trip! Other than all this, it was a normal high-school football obsessed game.
Honestly, I plan to start visiting these football games more often. I even checked it with my former high-school's schedule and luckily there aren't any real conflicts.
Labels: Life, Places, Sports, Travel
