Another photoooo from my mouse at her Pigeon River camping site. (Last night. She’s home now and works tomorrow.)

As I write this, the Michigan/Michigan State football game just kicked off and it is on TV. College football games have been on TV since the early afternoon. I am okay with that. As I have said many times, I don’t give a crap about football or other team games but I love the ambience of football in the fall.

I think the first football game I went to was with my dad and granddaddy. I was in sixth grade and my cousin Mac was a ninth grader and on the team so we went to watch him play. It was really exciting sitting up in the bleachers and I’m sure they bought me pop and popcorn or whatever. I don’t remember that and I don’t remember anything about the game but except my dad yelling out, “Come on Soo! Buckle down!” I was amazed. Just to say, my dad did NOT play football in high school (or any time). He was a cross-country runner. His older brother (Mac’s dad) played football.

The next year I was in junior high and began my marching career in the high school band (long boring story about why I was in the high school band). Fast forward a bit more. I was a high school senior and my brother was a freshman. My parents took a two-week bank trip to Hawaii and my brother and I stayed with Don and Katie (our aunt and uncle).

I had one of my parents’ cars and was responsible for driving my brother (and me) to school every day. It was fall so most mornings that meant marching band practice at the football field. One morning we got there and the bleachers et al had been vandalized with all kinds of paper crapola hanging everywhere. Alas, I knew who had done it. It was my boyfriend and his buddy “Foot”. Foot had organized it. My little brother was absolutely gobsmacked. I can still remember him laughing his head off and yelling, “Foot was here! Foot was here!” I don’t think Foot and my boyfriend got in any kind of trouble. My boyfriend was well known for being very responsible. He was a college accounting student at the time and had a good job. Foot went on to join the army and rose to a high rank, I know not what. Of course, it’s also possible that they didn’t get CAUGHT!

I loved staying with Don and Katie for those two weeks. Their four children were all born before I was and they gave me a lot more leeway than my parents did. My parents were wonderful but I was their first (after *11* years of trying) and were, I dunno, somewhat stricter than Don and Katie who seemed to trust me to drive around town and go out with my boyfriend until all hours of the night. And they were right to do that because I was definitely pretty responsible.

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