Flashback Friday - High School Football.....

Maybe I fell in love with high school football because when I was in high school, Friday night football was ALL there was to do in our town. Seriously, we had one "restaurant" - a Dairy Queen, which is where my first job was. I made $1.50 and hour and had to wear all white. And nurses' shoes.

I was supposed to be a cheerleader my 10th grade year, but I quit before the season started. It may have been a recurring knee problem (the damn things just pop out of place for no reason at all), or it may have been a deep-seated feeling that I wasn't cheerleader material. Anyway, I marched in the bank that year, playing the glockenspiel, and my junior and senior years I was on the drill team. So Friday night football was my social life for all of high school (and for most of my friends too).

Even after high school, I couldn't get away from going to the football games. I remember hanging around one Friday night talking to Figment (my crush from high school and beyond, but boy am I glad now that he wouldn't give me the time of day), and I was probably all googly-eyed or something. He wanted to go to medical school, but he abandoned those plans in college (I'm not sure why - maybe he wasn't smart enough), and along the way he was a police officer for a while and then an EMT. (He's now a P.A., and he has treated my mother before. Horrors!) The night I was chatting with him at the ballgame, we were standing along the fence (because cool people NEVER sit down at a high school football game), and he casually mentioned that he hoped they didn't need the ambulance that night, because it wouldn't crank. I think he was trying to impress me with the fact that he and the EMT's on duty that night were BFF's or something. Whatever.

I swear it hadn't been 5 minutes since we had that conversation when the announcer came on the P.A. system and said they needed the ambulance on the field. (Looking back, I'm not sure why they had to ANNOUNCE it. A football field is pretty big, it's pretty much the center of attention, and I'm pretty sure everything had come to a screeching halt.) Figment looked at me, and I looked at him, and he took off running. Again, I think that only made him LOOK important. Unless he had a battery tucked in his pants, there wasn't a whole lot he could do.

Even after I started teaching, I was still part of Friday night football. Perhaps it made me look like a dedicated teacher, but in reality it was just an excuse. I loved the lights, the band, the cheerleaders, the cool night air, the ceremony, the tradition, the pep rallies, everything. I even wore the school colors, even though they were HIDEOUS together. (Red and gold - yuck! Only it's hard to find clothes that are truly "gold," so we usually wound up wearing red and yellow. Double yuck!! I didn't mind wearing them to school, but darned if I didn't hate having to stop at the store wearing those garish things.) I didn't just WATCH the games, though. I became COMPLETELY CAUGHT UP IN THEM. I remember at one game, early in my career, I was sitting alone because I didn't know anyone yet who wasn't smart enough to stay home on a Friday night, and there was a punt into the end zone. I screamed at the receiver, "DOWN IT!!!" Every single person in our section turned around to look at me. I wanted to say, "WHAT?????" but it was apparent they thought I was nuts for being so into a high school game.

When Sweet Girl was in high school, I attended the games to see her march in the band, and one time Hubby and I even served as chaperones to an away game. That was the only time we did that though; I thought Hubby was going to get thrown off the bus for misbehavior.

I don't have any reason to go to Friday night games right now. I'm hopeful for the future, though, because my great-nephew will be in high school next year. He's 6'3" in the 8TH GRADE, and the high school coaches are salivating for him to get there. And oh yeah, one year on his standardized tests, he missed a question. One. Question. So he's not just a jock. I can't wait to go see him play. I hope for all that's holy their colors are not red and "gold."

Figment.......

There was a guy I was craaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaazy about in high school. He was fairly shy, and I was ................................. not. But I was smitten with him. [Don't you love the word "smitten"? I got it from a girl I used to work with. I hate her, but I kept the word.]

I talked about him nonstop, probably because in some corner of my brain I thought if I talked about him enough, someday he might actually give me the time of day.

My Aunt Rosie started teasing me about whether or not this guy even existed, so she started calling him Figment. As in "of my imagination."

We had lots of things in common, Figment and I. Except for that shyness thing. We went to church together. We played in the marching band together. At church we sang in a gospel quartet together. I sang alto; I don't remember what he sang, but I think it was bass. We were in chorus together in school. We went on at least one mission trip together with the church. I don't remember whether or not he was along on the trip when I had to get stitches in my eyebrow because I bumped heads with someone else. We had been warned over and over again not to "horseplay". But I didn't consider jumping on his back to be horseplay at all. Figment and I were both going to go to medical school and become doctors. I don't know what kind of doctor he planned to be, but I was going to be a pediatrician. (Isn't everyone?) And then after my step-father died of cancer my senior year, I was going to be a neurologist.

When I was in 10th grade and Figment was a senior, he asked me to the prom. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. I kind of thought it meant we were "going together" or something. I started making wedding plans and sending out "save the date" cards. Not really. I didn't know what a "save the date" card was back then.


HE (apparently) thought it was a date to the prom. Period. I hate men for the way they think. Didn't he know it was much more significant than that?

Yes, that is a lime green tuxedo jacket he's wearing. It matches the lime green in the modest cover-up that my mother made at the last minute, when she saw what you get when you combine a halter-top dress pattern with very stretchy qiana fabric. And yes, those are braces shining on my teeth. I finally got them off my SENIOR year in high school.

When I got suspended from school the very week of the prom, there was a slight possibility that I wouldn't be allowed to go. There was an even greater possibility that I wouldn't be ALIVE to go. He saw me in the hall right after I was suspended, and when I told him the news, his reaction was a poor one. I don't remember what it was exactly, but I smacked him on the arm. I think it was along the lines of, "Ha ha ha ha ha, you finally got caught skipping." He sobered up quickly when he realized the whole prom thing hung in the balance. I don't think he would have been heartbroken; he just would have had a hard time finding a date on four days' notice.

When I was a senior and Figment was a sophomore in college, I returned the favor. That's when I wore the beautiful dress that Katydid painstakingly made for me and then told me to throw the pattern away. He said he hoped it was okay if he DIDN'T rent a tuxedo, and surprisingly it WAS okay. He bought me a wrist corsage when all of my friends got nosegays (what the hell IS a nosegay, anyway?), but that was okay too. At least I didn't keep misplacing my flowers. And since my corsage was on my cigarette hand, I didn't have to worry about setting them on fire. Classy, no?
By this time my step-father had died, and Mother was too tired to care anymore if my dress stretched and showed things it shouldn't.

He went away to college, and we kept in touch by letters. One Valentine's Day I received a card from him that said on the front, "One night I dreamed about George Washington and I found a dollar. Another night I dreamed about Abraham Lincoln and I found a five dollar bill." On the inside of the card it said, "The other night I dreamed about you, and I woke up with heartburn." I was puzzling over what it could possibly mean when I read what he had written: "This can be taken two ways. I hope you take it the right way." Well THANKS FOR CLEARING THAT UP. I kept the card for years, but I finally threw it away. Probably in one of my many moves or marriages.

One night during the disco era I had (for once) dressed up to go to the ........ nightclub ........ oh what the hell, it was a bar ...... where I was a regular. A regular to the point that the bartender had my drink ready when I got there. Sad but true. I wasn't sporting the whole disco outfit, but I had on platform shoes, a skirt, and a snug sweater. Forgive me, but due to the structure of certain parts of my body (two of them), EVERY sweater was snug.

I saw Figment walk in, and I just about fluttered myself to death. Yes, I am aware that I have used that meaningless phrase two blog entries in a row. We ran into each other there all the time, but on this particular night I was aware that I looked better than the typical jeans and shiny blouses I wore. I decided to take the initiative and let him see how glad I was to see him. He stood by the bar, letting his eyes get used to the dimness, when I approached. Remember that I was wearing platform shoes. High-heeled ones. And I forgot to remember that where he stood, the floor sloped upward.

I literally fell at his feet. He helped me up, but I could tell he was A) embarrassed that he knew me; and B) struggling not to laugh. I said, "You can pretend you don't know me if you want to." That's all I remember about that night. If I had any sense, I would have left immediately. But I was never accused of having any sense.

One night when I was living alone in an apartment (God, I loved that apartment), I was headed home after a night on the town when I saw blue lights behind me. Now I have to admit that it is only by the mercy of God that I never got stopped the whole time I was in college and ripping up and down the road at all hours of the night. Thank you, God. Again today. These blue lights got behind me when I was less than 100 yards away from the entrance to my apartment. "Great," I thought. "Busted this close to home."

Behind the wheel of the cruiser was Figment. He had become a police officer briefly in his quest to discover exactly what he wanted to be when he grew up. He had night duty, and when he saw my car out at that time of night, he just had to throw a scare into me. I loved him for it. Really. He said he might swing back by when he got off duty, and I hung all my hopes on those words. I went to sleep on the sofa with all the lights on, so if he came back by he wouldn't see a dark apartment and think I'd gone to bed.

Eventually I gave up. I went to his wedding (after which I attempted to drown my sorrows); I THINK he came to mine. He married a nurse, and he became a physician's assistant. [My MOTHER has gone to see him before for some illness or another. Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!!!!!!] I got a doctorate in education. So we both sort of became doctors after all.

I don't know why it makes me sad to think about Figment. I'm pretty sure we wouldn't have lasted. In retrospect, I don't think he was really all that shy. He was just too calm for me. I think he would have crushed my penchant for risk-taking. And I am pretty sure I would have crushed his mother by now. I ran into her outside the pharmacy when Sweet Girl was two weeks old. She looked puzzled for a moment, and then she said, "Gosh ....... somebody told me you'd already HAD the baby."

Yeah, we're much better off the way we are. Especially his mother.