Having grown up here and having gone to football games for 50-odd years, the fact that I am skipping the game tomorrow is hard for me to process. I have been a fanatic. I was raised on the lore of the Big Game...the last minute plays...the argy-bargy among the students, the pranks and all of the fanfare during the week that led up to the game. As an aside, what ever became of the Bond Club and Guardsmen's lunches, etc.
I think in my lifetime, I have missed a total of three games, all of which were in Berkeley. One, mercifully, was 1982, where I was on a bus to Cloverdale for a HS football playoff game. John Paye was our QB and it was his senior season. One was due to having to fly out for a work fire drill, and the last was the fire year where the game was moved back and I had left town by then. Only three. I have sat thru the rain, was there for the revenge of the Play, watching Luck truck that DB and for all sort of other misadventures.
In school, I built bonfires, was an AxeComm guy and can't remember how I got home from a rally in the City. Big Game was special, even when we were not good. It was part of the culture and the fabric of being in the Bay Area, a native and someone fortunate enough to wear a "We got in" button with pride and enmity for all things weenie. Losing sucked and meant that I'd never hear the end of it from the sore winners.
Tomorrow, I will be at home, happy to have a Saturday and not devoting the whole day to the schlep to the Peoples' Republic. I will watch the game, but maybe on DVR rather than live to save time. My best friend and seat mate lives within walking distance of Memorial Stadium. He's bailing, too. I have nothing vested in the game other than a perverse hope that any loss will be ugly to add to whatever pressure there might be on the naked emperor. I feel dirty that a win might work against the best interests of the program. I will probably skip BYU as well.
I used to plan my fall around football. My wife let me skip our wedding rehearsal so I could go to a season opener against SJSU. Having been married before and reasonably good at walking in a straight line, I convinced her that I did not need to be there. She acquiesced. A keeper, not doubt.
Now, like most of you, there is no joy. There is no fun. To call it ambivalence might imply that there could be feelings one way or another. And I hate it. It is your fault, David. Yours alone with an assist from Mr. McGoo, the athletic director. You've sucked the life out of something that was dear to me. It could be a generation before the pendulum swings, and time is not on my side.
Thanks a (six) million Dave. You're the gift that keeps on giving when others might have followed the Samurai code and resigned to preserve honor.
Someone let me know if Top Dog is still open and good.
I think in my lifetime, I have missed a total of three games, all of which were in Berkeley. One, mercifully, was 1982, where I was on a bus to Cloverdale for a HS football playoff game. John Paye was our QB and it was his senior season. One was due to having to fly out for a work fire drill, and the last was the fire year where the game was moved back and I had left town by then. Only three. I have sat thru the rain, was there for the revenge of the Play, watching Luck truck that DB and for all sort of other misadventures.
In school, I built bonfires, was an AxeComm guy and can't remember how I got home from a rally in the City. Big Game was special, even when we were not good. It was part of the culture and the fabric of being in the Bay Area, a native and someone fortunate enough to wear a "We got in" button with pride and enmity for all things weenie. Losing sucked and meant that I'd never hear the end of it from the sore winners.
Tomorrow, I will be at home, happy to have a Saturday and not devoting the whole day to the schlep to the Peoples' Republic. I will watch the game, but maybe on DVR rather than live to save time. My best friend and seat mate lives within walking distance of Memorial Stadium. He's bailing, too. I have nothing vested in the game other than a perverse hope that any loss will be ugly to add to whatever pressure there might be on the naked emperor. I feel dirty that a win might work against the best interests of the program. I will probably skip BYU as well.
I used to plan my fall around football. My wife let me skip our wedding rehearsal so I could go to a season opener against SJSU. Having been married before and reasonably good at walking in a straight line, I convinced her that I did not need to be there. She acquiesced. A keeper, not doubt.
Now, like most of you, there is no joy. There is no fun. To call it ambivalence might imply that there could be feelings one way or another. And I hate it. It is your fault, David. Yours alone with an assist from Mr. McGoo, the athletic director. You've sucked the life out of something that was dear to me. It could be a generation before the pendulum swings, and time is not on my side.
Thanks a (six) million Dave. You're the gift that keeps on giving when others might have followed the Samurai code and resigned to preserve honor.
Someone let me know if Top Dog is still open and good.
