Bring it on

It's 8 a.m. Through the haze of sleep I hear throngs of people on the street, the clinking of bottles, and music. Somebody comes into the room where I'm sleeping, and as I sit up he thrusts a gin and tonic into my hand. "It's 8 in the morning!", I protested. He grinned. "This is obviously your first time, isn't it."

But let me back up.

Today is the day. It's that day when I know fall is here, school is here, everything is happening. As I look out the window I see a hundred extra cars crammed into my neighborhood. I see the school flag flying on four different houses within my sight. I see people, old fat alums from up north, probably, wandering by all dressed in red and white. I see red and white everywhere. Out on the bike path I see an enterprising kid with a lemonade stand, and boy is she cleaning up. Yup, it's the day when you know school is really here, and the lazy days of summer are behind you. It's game day!

The very air seems to quiver with the energy of 40,000 students back in town. Football is a big deal here, a very very big deal, and game days change the entire feel of the city. You can spot the out-of-towners a mile away, and they're everywhere: in the restaurants, in the bars, ambling down State Street, chowing down on brats. They drive down our streets in their giant Ford Expeditions and they overflow the bar stools as their red and white shirts cry out in protest, unable to stretch any farther to accommodate that last beer hitting the gut.

Every year on the first Saturday in September we have our first home game. The entire city drops everything in order to throw a giant party that begins at the crack of dawn and lasts well past midnight. For me, this day is inextricably linked with fall, with teaching, with back-to-school feelings. It's an exciting day. It's the kind of day that makes me excited to go back, that makes me glad that the students have returned, breathing fresh air into the city. It's the kind of day that makes football seem like a good idea.

My first game day was 4 years ago, and it coincided with the first time I ever saw Jake's place. That weekend his brother came into town, and the two of them decided to throw a weekend-long party. On Friday night I went over to Jake's house, after a summer of him visiting me, and saw the giant old place that he shared with 7 of his closest friends. Jake's parents drove down and we all ate dinner together outside on the enormous front porch, saying hello to passing neighbors out for their evening walk. It was a warm night, without a breeze, and the crickets were out.

I'm a night owl by nature, which by the way makes having small kids kind of tough on sleep, and on a Saturday the thought of rolling out of bed before, say, 10 was not one I'd ever had. So I was surprised to wake at 8 to the sounds of a party in the street. And in the house. And on the porch. Jake was nowhere to be seen. I gingerly lifted up a window shade to see dozens of people out on the street, all dressed in red, drinking beer and listening to music. Some were playing frisbee. I glanced down to the porch -- ah, there was Jake, with a bunch of people I'd never seen before, and does he have a drink in his hand? At this hour? At that moment our friend Ryan burst into the room and shoved a gin and tonic in my hand. When I protested, he laughed and said "but it's game day!", as if that explained everything.

The games don't start until 11, but the partying starts at dawn.

Unless you're me. I just can't bring myself to choke down a gin and tonic right off the bat, so instead I took a shower and ate an omelette that Jake prepared for me. I was 33. Jake was 26, and most of his friends were about 23. Suddenly I found myself thrust into this crowd of people barely older than the students I would have to face later that week. In the years since I have become good friends with most of them, but that weekend I felt like a fish out of water.

We won the game that day, although I'm not sure that mattered much to anybody, and we went out on the town that night with about 30 friends who I met for the first time that morning. Each one seemed younger than the next. I didn't know what to do with myself that night, so I drank. And became chummy with everybody. And drank some more. Suddenly we were all best friends. At bar time, which by the way is 2 a.m., Jake and his brother and his future sister-in-law and I all walked home from downtown, an easy 2-mile stroll in the balmy night. There was no way I could have found my way home on my own. Jake decided to take advantage of my drunken state. "So", he asked, "what are your feelings for me?" All casual like. "Hah," I said, all clever, "You're not going to trick me into admitting that I love you. Don't even try." Jake suppressed a smile, and took my hand.