Firsts - Football....

If you live in Iowa long enough, you'll come to understand that football, whether it be played on Friday nights or Saturday afternoons, is a big stinkin' deal. 

Don't get me wrong, I love football. 

I love sitting huddled up on metal bleachers with a blankie under your hiney and two over your lap while you're yelling with family and friends for the hometown hero.  There is nothing quite like hearing the marching band playing the school song and seeing the cheerleaders decked out in their school finery. 

And then there's college football.

We don't have any professional sports teams in Iowa.  Minor league stuffs but nothing than a state away and it's just not the same thing, ya know?

We take our college football very seriously around here and you'll also come to understand that the further west you go, there are some folks who root for the Iowa State Cyclones.  The closer you travel to Iowa City, you'll see cars, homes, and people decked out in their black and yellow finery declaring their allegiance to the Iowa Hawkeyes.

And our home is no exception.

We're for the Hawks.

Every member of our family has a hoodie or a tee-shirt or jersey that bears the Hawkeyes symbol.

It's also a big stinkin' deal to attend the football games in Iowa City.

If you're a Saturday grocery shopper, you know well enough to avoid the city like the plague during game day.

Anywhere and everywhere around Kinnick Stadium (proudly named after our very own war hero and Heisman trophy winner, Nile Kinnick) is a madhouse.  But, if you're lucky enough to be part of the spectacle that is game day....well, that's a whole different ball of wax, as they say.

A few years ago I was lucky enough to take our son to his very first game at Kinnick Stadium.

 

We had scored some tickets thanks to a very good friend of ours and on a Saturday morning in early Fall of 2008, Arik and I set off early to Iowa City.  I can remember chit-chatting on the way there, a little blurry-eyed yet, but that kid was ten then and could chatter, chatter, chatter when he was excited.  It was still cool to do that then.  Now that he's 14, he plays things a little bit aloof and close to the vest.  We parked with little problem and started our way towards Kinnick.

If any of you follow college football, then you know half of the entertainment is the people and the tailgaiting.  The closer we got to Kinnick, the more people we saw.  Kinnick is pretty impressive, especially if you're a ten year old.

Heck, who am I kidding?  I walk by that stadium every day to work and I still love it.  I run into the football players in the morning, coming back from a.m. practice in their sweat socks, pulled up to their knees, and Adidas flip-flops.  And one day was lucky enough to accidentally bump into our very own Coach Ferentz.  He was a nice guy with a ready smile and a 'Good Morning' to me.

Yeah, yeah, I forgot who I was for a second there.  This is why I should never meet famous people.

Annnnnyway, the closer we got to Kinnick, the bigger the melee'.  There were grills, coolers, awnings, and the scents of good food.  Everywhere you looked it was black and gold.

It's a sight to see.

Arik, bless his heart, kept stopping to look around every now and again and I would have to remind him to press on.  We got in line to get to our seats and arrived early enough to watch the stadium fill up.  Just right before game time, I told him to turn and look around.  His eyes got huge and he just looked back at me.  I'll never forget that look.  The stadium can hold a little over 70,000 people.  I can only imagine how that looks to a kid, but if judging by the look on Arik's face....yeah, it's mindblowing.  

I love that our stadium is deemed one of the 'toughest' to play at in the Big Ten.  I love that our student section is crazy and fun to watch.  I also love that you can't explain the deafening noise when all of those folks are on their feet screaming for our team.  You can't explain, you can only experience.

We were lucky enough to sit in front of some lovely folks who let Arik stand on his seat most of the game as we rarely sat down.  It was the Shonn Greene show that day.  He was a running back for our beloved Hawks who has having an epic 'on' day.  We screamed until we were hoarse.  We stopped to quench our thirsts with five dollar Cokes and high-fived our neighbors - front and behind - several times during the game.  Slowly, every one around us was talking and all came to find that it was Arik's first game.  I think he got high-fived more than anyone - including the team - that day.  There's something magical about sharing a game with a kid.  It reminds us of being a kiddo ourselves and what it feels like, the magic, of watching a game like that for the first time. 

It's something only a child can understand and as much as we'd love to get back that wonder of the game, we get to experience it in bits and pieces through our children's eyes every now and again.  Although, if pressed to comment on his memories, Arik would probably just say:  "It was cool."

And at the end of the day, our team were the victors.

Final score:  38-16.

 We wound our way out of Kinnick and back through a sea of Gold to our vehicle.  Arik's chatter filled the air the whole way home as he relived every one of Shonn's break out runs toward a touchdown and how big the band was and how cool the drum line was and yes, the girls in their cheerleader skirts, but how cool was it to see so many people?  Yeah, I could listen to that kind of excitement all day.

Opening day for the Hawkeyes is this Saturday at Soldier Field in Chicago against Northern Illinois with at 2:30 p.m.  If you get a chance to catch the game, turn it on and help root on our Hawkeyes.  I know our family will have out butts firmly planted in front of our tv and all wearing our black & gold proudly.

It's part of being an Iowan.

It's who we are.

We're the Hawkeyes.  

'Firsts'

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In honor of this year being a year of definite 'firsts' for me, I thought I'd do a 'firsts' series. 

But allow me preface these tales with another small story:  A couple years ago (almost 18 months to be exact) I was working in a job that made me supremely unhappy.  You know the job.  We've all  had 'em, right?  Low pay, low respect, maximum duties, and there were times where I was so damned uncomfortable with my job tasks (I can admit that now that I'm away from there).  The morale at that place was crazy low, the management was just plain cray, and while our family still needed me to work, I was completely unhappy.  On the positive side - there's always a silver lining - there were some good gals that I worked with and if nothing more, that job taught me exactly what I could handle:  And that place weren't it.

Now, through a stroke of luck, I got the job I have now.  I work for six pathologists at the University of Iowa Hospital and love my job 99.9% of the time.  My faculty/bosses are AMAZING, kind, quirky, funny, lovely folks. 

I had been there about six months or so when it was discovered through one of our conversations that I had never ever flown in a plane before.

Yeah, I know.  How do these things happen, Hez?  Why you no fly before?

Well, last time I checked, plane tickets cost moneys and the last thing on my list for extraneous expenses was flying somewhere.  I also grew up in a household where flying just wasn't mentioned or something we did. 

Ergo, no flying for Hez. 

Now, onto present day....or at least the latter part of last year.  One of my faculty's spouses flies planes as a hobby and they offerred to take me and any number of my family members up in this cute little four-seater plane.  We even made plans but for some reason or other it got tabled till this year.  It was brought up again in May or June and we settled on Sunday, July 1st.

Oh yeah, my birthday. 

I also decided that I wasn't doing this alone.  My 14-year-old son, Arik, was tagging along.  Needless to say, like all teenage boys, he was STOKED. 

Me?  I was scared to death.  But did I show it?  I hope not.

My birthday dawned warm.  It was the first of July in Iowa, after all.  How could it NOT be warm?  But it was a great day all around.  I got homemade cards, ice cream cake, and had a nice relaxing day.  Five-thirty finally rolled around and we - the boy and I - headed up to the Iowa City Airport. 

Ms. Faculty greeted us there as her hubby was out inspecting the plane and we hung out in the tiny airport shooting the breeze.  One whole wall of that room was windows, of course.  We could see a smaller jet sitting on the tarmac.  Mr. Pilot was sharing the room with us reading his newspaper.  I'd glance at him now and again (hello?  People watching, my all-time fave past-time) and he'd grin as Arik (aka The Boy) would make some comment about this being his first flight, too.

Did I mention that? 

No?

Well, yeah, it was The Boy's first time at bat with this whole flying shebang, too.

And then it was time.

My first thoughts, if memory serves, went along the lines of something like "Holy SH*T, that's a tiny plane!" and "OMG, I hope he has barf bags". 

Really, no self-respecting Cancer would lose control like that, but it was a near thing on descent.  But again, back to the first impressions.  It was a cute plane.  And we climbed in - me in the back with Ms. Faculty and Arik up front with Ms. Faculty's Spouse. 

That would be the Boy pre-flight.  He told me later that he had major butterflies but was also REALLY excited. 

I absolutely adore this picture.  It's Ms. Faculty's Spouse explaining how everything on the 'dash' of an airplane works.  Arik, for once, is really intensely paying attention.  And plus the silhouettes make me happy for some reason.  I dunno.  I'm weird like that.  I'm also sure Mr. Freud has something to say about that but we'll delve into my psyche and neuroses another day. 

And then we were off.  We radioed the tower and let 'em know we were on the way and within minutes we were airborn.  I kept looking at the treetops, and not the ground, as I didn't really want to hurf.  All the while I could hear Ms. Faculty's Spouse and Arik chattering away in my headphones. 

And then, then, then Ms. Faculty's Spouses voice came ringing through the fog that had developed in my brain:  "Hey, Arik, you wanna fly the plane?"

My mommy mind screamed 'WOT?'  Um, hell to the no. 

But I figured if this guy knew how to fly a plane, he sure as heck take anything a novice kiddo could dish out.  I could hear Arik's excited reply of yes.  And then there was this:

Yup, sportsfans, that's my kid flying a plane.  He did an amazing job and listened to everything Mr. Faculty said and I could hear the smile in his voice over the headphones. 

Incidentally, when I told him later that as many times as his dad had flown in small, private planes he'd never once flown it himself.  Arik fist pumped the air and I knew he was so beyond excited to have done something his dad had never done.

This is what happens when you're a boy and have a bad ass for a dad, I guess.  LOL

Anyway, we flew over our town and got to see our house and all I kept thinking was that Iowa looks like a quaint quilt from the air. 

And we got a gander at the Iowa River not far from our town, too:

One thing Arik and I both enjoyed was seeing people's yards and finding swimming pools that we would've had no way of knowing were there from the ground.  We're simple folk.  What can I say?

After seeing our house and our town, we turned around and headed back towards Iowa City.  Arik drove most of the way back sans the landing.  The descent was probably the only time that I felt nearly ill but I hung on and breathed deeply and then we were on the ground again, moving steadily down the runway.  Once we got slowed down, Ms. Faculty's Spouse let Arik drive the plane back to the hangar which wasn't as easy as it sounds.  He had to drive with foot pedals but my kid handled it like a PRO! 

The boys went through the jillion point inspection as we hopped out (once the plane was stopped, of course) and Arik helped Ms. Faculty's Souse push the plane into the hangar. 

We said our thank-yous and good-byes in front of the tiny airport. 

The whole way home that kid of mine was ear-to-ear GRINS.  It was an amazing experience to be able to share with him and I'm so very glad we did it and am so thankful to have people in my life who want to do things like that for us. 

Yeah, pretty danged thankful. 

To wrap this post up as it's gotten to be a little run-on, I'll say that it's a summer for 'firsts'....or a year maybe.  Either way, I wouldn't be able to do these things without the people around me that support and love me in a way that allows me to step way outside of my comfort zone and do things that scare the bejeezus outta me. 

Also, in closing, what have you guys done for the first time this past year?  Share with me. 

As a teaser for the next 'firsts' posts, I will tell you that they include a music festival by the name of 'Bonnaroo' and also taking my son to his very first concert in August (cannot. freaking. wait.).