High School Football & Tearing-Up

Why did I tear-up last night at Amador’s football game? Jen noticed, “What’s wrong dad?” I blurted out something about how these strange emotions sneak up on me. It’s hard to explain. Maybe it was cumulative. The week before we were at Foothill’s Senior Night with parents and grandparents. Now again, Senior Night, this time with Alex’s parents and grandparent. We haven’t been to an Amador High School Football game in years and years—since 1994 when Jeremiah crowned his successor Home Coming King. Or, maybe we attend a few games sprinkled in there between now and then. I don’t recall any tears.

It is hard to explain, but I would like to take a shot at it. It happened, that tearing up thing, before kick-off when the band was playing and the students cheering, and the players jumping up a down eager to begin the big game. It was a perfect Friday night under-the-lights football spectacle. The stadium more than packed for this cross-town rivalry. It’s the same spectacle my father enjoyed in the early nineteenth century when Stockton High played Lodi High School. The same when Gary and I played (Gary played, I suited up) for the big game between Santa Rosa High School and Montgomery High. The same as when we attended Friday night games with our High School age children during the late 80s and early 90s. And, there I was, 25 years later, on Senior Night watching Ron with his daughter and son-in-law walk the field before the game to honor their senior son/grandson.

How many traditions remain intact for over a hundred years? And football… you would think The Enlightened would put a stop to it. There must be something wrong with such civic fun. Isn’t there something sexist about those cheerleaders? And, certainly football is a violent game—too dangerous. Kids get hurt. How do they let us get away with it? Maybe that’s why I teared-up. We got away with it. And it was so much fun.

I suppose there’s more to it. There’s always more—like age perhaps. We get nostalgic. When we were young parents, watching our children play, we didn’t realize how beautiful a Friday night football game could be. Now, we take it in with wonder and gratitude. In spite of our troubled and conflicted world, there remains something precious about God’s beautiful green earth. Maybe, if the Lord allows us to stick around, we will walk that beautiful green field one Senior Night with one of our grandchildren. Wouldn’t that be something?

Back Home from Pat Conroy’s Lowcountry:

I sent Jeremiah his prize from Beaufort, South Carolina: A Lowcountry Heart. It’s a book of reflections by Pat Conroy and others collected after his death in 2016. Jeremiah won the prize by properly identifying that Beaufort picture I sent you, as the house in The Great Santini.

Towards the end of A Lowcountry Heart we read “A Letter to My Grandson on Sportsmanship and Basketball.”  It’s basketball that connects Jeremiah to Conroy from The Great Santini to My Losing Season. “The Citadel,” Conroy says addressing the graduating class of 2001, “gave me one of the greatest gifts of my life—it allowed me to be a college basketball player, to represent my college from the hills of West Virginia to the banks of the Mississippi to the night lights of New Orleans.” That’s pretty much our road trip with the Sjodahls.

Conroy’s kind of sentimentalism is expressed in the title “A Lowcountry Heart”. He has a big heart for the lowcountry and for its people. During our road trip we viewed the tidal marshes of South Carolina that filled him with wonder, awe and love—love for the land and love for the many sorted people he engaged there. That’s the stuff of great stories—especially bible stories like the story of Judah and Tamar: “It happened at that time that Judah went down from his brothers and settled near a certain Adulamite whose name was Hirah.” The “it” that “happened” when Judah “settled” in a certain place, is deeply tangled, troubled and problematic. It ends with a surprise: “She is more righteous than I.” Conroy’s stories are like that. All good stories are like that.

Yet, the Gospel Story is more than sentiment. It’s the story about God’s big troubling yet glorious decision about us. It’s the story about what happened when “Jesus set his face to go to Jerusalem” (Lk 9:51). Calvary moves us to love people—to have a big heart towards people and places.

Children and Children’s Children:

Grandchildren are the crown of the aged,

and the glory of children is their parents. (Pr 17:6)

          Let your father and mother be glad;

let her who bore you rejoice. (Pr 23:25)

Our church celebrated its 50^th year anniversary last weekend—a weekend full of festivities. Our children were raised in the church. From Austin, TX and San Diego, CA our children, along with a few of their children, rendezvous for the event. Our home was full of life like days of old.

Our daughter Rachel insisted on this blog so I could pass on some morning fire pit mussing to our children and our children’s children. It’s been spotty. I’ll keep at it.

For now, Linda and I just want to acknowledge how proud our children and our children’s children made us at the 50^th Anniversary celebration. I don’t know about the second line of the proverb—about the children seeing something good about their parents. But, we know for sure about the first line: “Grandchildren are the crown of the aged” (Pr 17:6). And, that our children and children’s children bring us deep “gladness” (Pr 23:25).