Long Time Gone (or Return of the Native)

I had a post drafted on Friday and it got swallowed, and then events of the weekend overtook me. To fast-forward a bit, I finished my week working in Milwaukee on Thursday and departed Friday morning for Columbus, there to meet up with my mom, my brothers and their wives, and to play and march once again with my Ohio State alumni band at the OSU-Youngstown State game. Not exactly a scintillating matchup, but don’t ask a Michigan fan today about whether it’s beneath a Big Ten team to play a Division II school.

Didn’t really have much chance to post after Friday morning because the entire weekend was a whirlwind of activity:

  • Friday evening - music rehearsal, then dinner with family (and perhaps a martini too far)
  • Saturday morning - marching and playing rehearsal at 6 am, which I managed to attend despite the emotional roller-coaster of oversleeping, a missed ride with my brother and an exculpatory taxi ride to the stadium.
  • Gametime at noon, in glorious, maybe just a little too glorious, sunshine; marching in an exhilarating pregame and halftime show and, because we scored early and often, playing my lips to swollen exhaustion in the stands
  • Gala dinner Saturday night with La Famiglia at an Italian restaurant
  • Sunday morning drive up to my mom’s house in Perrysburg
  • Hustle to downtown Toledo Sunday evening for a Mud Hens baseball doubleheader, followed by fireworks
  • Up early Monday (on schedule) to catch a ride to Detroit Metro airport and, at 8 days’ remove, my flight home to Seattle, from which I’m posting.

In my pre-dawn meltdown on Saturday, I neglected to grab my camera, so I have no photos from the ball game. If you peruse last year’s entries, you’ll get the essence of the experience, as nothing happened this year that was that much different. One thing - so many of us alumni (about 650) engage in this orgy of nostalgia that they have to run a lottery to assign the 384 Script Ohio spots. Since I was in it last year, I had a fairly slim chance of engaging in that sacrosanct alphabetic euphoria this year and, indeed, it would have required some sort of natural disaster that Ohio is particularly unsuited for (hurricane, earthquake, tsunami) for me to acquire a spot. Still, I got to march and play in all the other formations, and it’s still a thrill to risk my neck muscles looking up at the vertiginous terraces of 105,000 adoring Buckeye fans.

As I intimated, our opponent was the Youngstown State Penguins (yep - almost as endearing a mascot as the UC Santa Cruz Banana Slugs), a Division II school. For a team like Ohio State, it’s kind of like playing your little brother’s soccer team. You’re supposed to beat them badly, then feel either magnanimity or remorse, depending on the seriousness of the injuries inflicted. That’s how it worked Saturday for Ohio State, but the same scenario worked out a little differently for Michigan in its game in the Big House with Appalachian State. As our game ended, we had some intimation that Michigan was behind sometime in the 3rd quarter, but that they’d caught up and gone ahead in the fourth.

As my brother and I packed up our instruments and strolled away from the stadium, we passed through vast parking lots dotted with what are usually the dying embers of tailgate parties, burning here and there like Druid bonfires observing an inscrutable ritual. Saturday, however, there seemed to be an electric telepathy surging among them, causing simultaneous shouts to erupt across the vast heath of Buckeyedom.

We pilgrims happened upon one of these clusters to find its rustic denizens huddled under a tent and glued to a satellite-fed plasma vision of pain and anxiety beamed in from Ann Arbor. We set down our furze faggots and watched as, in an unbelievable 3 minutes of football, Michigan went ahead by 1 point, Appalachian State bamboozled the Wolverine defense and rashly kicked a go-ahead field goal with 30 seconds left when they could have asphyxiated the clock, then allowed Michigan to get within field goal range with 6 seconds left. With redemption in hand, Michigan had its chip-shot field goal blocked, and ended up losing the game.

Lots of my Buckeye correspondents are engaging in an unseemly orgy of schadenfreude. For my part, I revere the Ohio State-Michigan rivalry and always want it to be a clash of Titanic proportions - I always root for Michigan against other opponents. In more contemporary locution, Michigan’s our bitch. We may require any amount of groveling humiliation of her ourselves, but everyone else is advised to keep their grimy mitts off her.

OK, I know that most of you who suffer through these pages have either a disinterest in, or an aversion to, football and, except for a couple of Mr. Hyde hours on fall Saturday afternoons, I’m right there with you. I promise that these environs will continue to be dominated by Dr. Jekyll. Just don’t turn your back.

8 Comments

  1. If they don’t beat you this year, they’ll probably go hire a good coach.

  2. At least for a football-disparager like myself, you made this a very engaging and interesting post. I read all the way through and didn’t grimace once. I liked the part where Appalachia beat Michigan. I always root for underdogs, even though I never ever watch sports. Glad you’re back.

  3. Marilyn:

    Of course you knew you’d be hearing from me on a football post. When the Badgers beat the Cougars last week, I happened to notice that Wisconsin is ranked #7 this year ahead of Ohio State. Perhaps we should do some kind of a wager on the Big Ten results for the season. Loser buys lunch. Of course I have no plans to actually watch any games, but I’m sure you’ll let me know how it turns out.

  4. I was perfectly happy reading about …football. For me, that’s an amazing testament to your writing skills and/or your storytelling capabilities. Welcome back to the land of the sports-deprived!

  5. This SPARTAN savored your Thomas Hardy-like descriptions, especially regarding the burning down of the Big House. Just attach an important addendum to a certain sentence making it read thus: “I always root for Michigan against other opponents, with the exception of MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY.” Now you have a perfect post.

    Furze faggots? Do you and your brother play the bassoon?

  6. Oh, Phil … I thought we were friends, and now this.

    Don’t you at least feel a LITTLE bad for Norman?

  7. Phil:

    Sorry - busy week, laggard at revisiting here.

    Kathy - yeah, that’s the fear. If we fired ol’ “9-3″ Earle Bruce, can LLLLLoyd be far behind? But then, by the time they fire him, Charlie “Genius” Weis might be available for them to hire. Hmmm.

    Robin - mostly, I despise underdogs and their clod-hopping, populist followers. How would you have liked to clean the White House after Andrew Jackson’s inauguration party? Naw, give me the patrician ruthlessness, the obdurate beauty of the dynasty. (OK, being a little arch here)

    Marilyn - yer on! Although I think the Badgers will be awfully tough to beat this year. Why is it that I only hear from you when they’re top-ten? Someone’s paying a little more attention to these things than she lets on.

    John - thanks! But I don’t intend to deprive myself on Saturdays. Unless they start losing. Then, I’m out.

    Babette - Your new coach is our old defensive coordinator from our NC year in 2002, so he’ll get special consideration. Unless he goes overboard. I’ve heard the bassoon called the “burping bedpost”, but I’m unsure of the connection with furze.

    Nancy - I’m remembering a distinct lack of fellow-feeling from certain quarters on the morning of January 9th. Good luck against the Ducks today - the Big Ten needs some mojo.

  8. Phil:

    OK, Babette, I finally found the connection. I kept looking to connect it to “furze”, when I should have been looking for “faggot”. Nice, very discerning of you!