It's that Time of the Year Again!

Yes, football season has arrived. It's always a love/hate thing for me. We've been sitting on assorted sports bleachers cheering on our progeny for over twenty years now, the last ten heavily devoted to football as we've seen one son through high school and college teams and then William through youth football and now high school.

I'm a fairly big football fan myself, been watching it for most of my life, was pretty fanatical about it during the 49'ers Golden Years. Got out of watching pro football when we didn't have television for a year, it's not the same when you can't see the games live. But then got back into watching the kids' games and now also t.v. football with William.

By the end of every season I'm always glad to see the season end. It's not that I don't enjoy the games but the long distance travel every other weekend or so for away games, and figuring out what to do with our dog on an away game weekend, always a lot of work and money. Too, there are a lot of things I'd like to do in the autumn but my weekends are completely booked from late August through the middle of November every year. Still, I'm always up for a new season when they arrive.

Hubby was very excited to go to the game. He has his football hat and his football shirt on. Doesn't he look armless in this photo? Happy. But armless. It was actually William's shirt and William made him take it off so Hubby had to buy one for himself at the game.

The bleachers filled up fast. This is a football loving town. During the time our older son played, the team was virtually unbeatable for almost a decade. We're not quite that legendary any longer, but we still often play and beat teams much larger than ours. Because our town is so far away from any other town even close to our size, our away games involve driving two to six hours EACH WAY. Still, we often have as many fans stuffed into the always inadequate visitor's bleachers as the home team we're playing. Home games draw in half the community and in a really exciting game the cheers from the stadium can be heard anywhere in town.

Last night wasn't actually the first game. We always start the year off with a scrimmage called The Grizz Feed.. All the parents bring a dessert or salad and the snack bar provides grilled hamburgers and drinks. For $5 you get an all you can eat plate. After the game all the players eat for free. Everyone gets a chance to mull about and say hi to everyone you haven't seen since last year. Well, it's a small town, we probably have seen just about everyone over the summer, but it's still fun to all be together again.

I like this photo that shows the bright lights and festivities, behind everyone the big, dark woods. I really enjoy people watching at the games. Especially the clusters of teens. It brings back the "feeling" of when I was in high school, how different the world seemed to me then, how life could center around something as silly as an upcoming party or one boy who didn't know you existed. Sigh. I was naively and happily oblivious to most of the things I'd learn to worry about even just a few years later. I also like to watch the little kids who run wild getting dusty and tired. About the only people who sit in the bleachers for most of the game are the parents and grandparents.

William is varsity (mostly junior and seniors) this year. He's got a shiny new uniform and a new number as a senior still on the team had his number. Here he is stretching out before the game, wondering why his mom is being such a nerd and taking photos of him.


They played football for a bit. We watched some, chatted with friends some, went back to the tents for more brownies and potato salad some.

Being varsity is a big thing in this town. They have all these traditions and routines that only the varsity players get to do, a reward for sticking it out for all the previous years. This is them after the scrimmage doing their jumping all over each other routine.

We hung out a bit afterwards while William got his food, waiting for him to be ready to go home, until it finally dawned on his parents that ..... Duh! William drives now. He had his own car there. We didn't need to stay. Sniff. Kids grow up so fast.

I'm looking forward to taking a lot of photos this year as I have my new camera with twice the telephoto capacity. I'll try not to deluge you with too many purple and gold pics. But I can't make any promises.....