Take me out to the (foot)ball game

I graduated from Stillwater High School in 1993. Leaving out my junior year, which I spent in Sweden, I was a Pony for two years and an Oak Land Junior High Raider for three years before that. I played sports -- well, JV soccer and JV cross country skiing -- and I took part in activities. And yet I realize now I have spent more time at Irish Stadium watching the RHS football team than I ever spent watching football teams that had a fair degree of success.
I guess I wasn't what you'd call filled with school spirit. But if the Irish games I have attended in recent years are any indication I might have missed out. I skipped games when I was a student because I had no particular interest in high school football.
The thing I’m realizing, though, is that an interest in football is not even remotely necessary for the students who attend high school football games. Last Friday I attended Rosemount’s game against top-rated Eden Prairie. It was a big game. And I'm convinced there were students there who did not know at any point what the score actually was.
It was last week's game that really drove this message home. Going to a high school football game isn't about football. It's about getting together with friends. It's an excuse to sit outside on a nice fall night or to stand by the fence and talk about nothing at all and especially not what's happening on the field. The younger the student, the truer that seemed to be.
At Irish Stadium there seemed to be at least four groups of fans, at least among the students.
At the top were the Superfans. They're the ones who paint their bodies funny colors and wear goofy outfits and jump and scream and cheer all game long. They're the ones who actually care about what's happening on the field. Or, they had enough school spirit to pretend they did. Or, I suppose, they just liked to yell.
I wouldn’t have been a Superfan in high school. I probably would have been the one making fun of the Superfans with my friends.
After the Superfans were the regular fans. They're the ones who showed up early enough to get a seat in the bleachers and probably spent most of their time paying attention to the game. If you had asked them at halftime they probably could have told you the schedule. Or at least known where the scoreboard was. Or what sport they were watching.
Next were the casual fans. They typically stood by the fence and spent most of their time talking to each other but turned their head toward the field every once in a while. It’s not clear they were actually watching the game, but they at least could have made that argument.
Finally, there were the nonfans. They could have been at the mall or in someone's basement or on Ellis Island for all the attention they paid to the game. They were at the stadium primarily because it was Friday night and that was where students were supposed to be.
For the most part, interest in the game tended to exist in inverse proportion to the student's age. For whatever reason, high school seniors appeared to care a lot more about how their team was doing than their freshman counterparts and freshmen, even the ones standing by the fence, were showing infinitely more interest than the middle- and grade-schoolers who couldn't even be bothered to stay in the stadium during the game. At any given time there appeared to be four or five pick-up football games taking place on the fields outside the stadium. It's not clear whether this group -- and there were hundreds of them -- even bought tickets to the game. The games could have been played just about anywhere. Aside from the occasional cheer and the noise from the PA system they might not have known there was an actual sanctioned game going on.
Not that there's anything wrong with any of this. More than just about any other activity, high school football games are about building community. There's something great about seeing those football games going on. Presumably, at least some of the kids playing did not know each other when they started playing. And given the things everyone keeps saying about Americans all being fat and lazy, playing a little touch football seems like a better way to spend a Friday night than sitting around and watching America's Funniest Videos.
I’m starting to think I missed out 13 years ago.

Bad boys, whatcha gonna do?

I rode in the 100-mile Defeat of Jesse James Days Bike Tour last Saturday, just one day after I realized how much I have in common with the famous outlaw. For months, it seems, I have been living the life of a criminal.
OK, so my crime isn't anything as glamorous as robbing banks in the Old West. Or insider trading. Or even serial jaywalking. Nobody sent a posse after me and I didn't even get thrown in the hoosegow when I got caught.
Although the State Trooper who pulled me over did give me a ticket and refuse to let me drive my car.
Here's the thing. Apparently I was wearing my glasses the last time I got my driver's license renewed. As a result, I had a restriction on the license that required me to wear corrective lenses whenever I was driving. Only, nobody ever told me that, and I never bothered to read the back of my license, where the restriction was printed. My particular prescription has always been pretty weak, so when I lost my glasses a few months ago, I didn't bother to do anything about it.
That’s right. I was living outside the law. Sticking it to The Man. Next thing you knew I’d be cutting off mattress tags.
For a while, nobody even noticed. I lived my lawless existence and reveled in the danger of it all. I didn't hit any old ladies in crosswalks or drive through any shopping malls. None of which swayed the trooper when he pulled me over last Friday south of St. Peter.
"You have a restriction on your driver's license," he told me, the sunlight glinting cruelly off of his own pair of lenses. He knew he was bringing down a hardened criminal. "That's a problem. I can't let you drive."
"I have a what?" I said, hoping to throw him off with the fallback of most hardened criminals: genuine ignorance. "Nobody ever told me that."
"It says it right here on the back of your license. Can you see that."
I could see it, a fact I thought should have strengthened my case. But apparently being able to read the fine print on the back of a driver's license was not adequate proof of my ability to drive safely.
I considered claiming I was wearing contacts (What’s a little lie to police to serial lawbreaker?) but it occurred to me if I was going to start lying to police officers I should not do it with a claim that could be so easily disproved.
The trooper asked if there was anyone I could call to bring me glasses or to drive my car. I pointed out, as politely as possible, that I live in St. Paul and was currently sitting somewhere just north of Mankato. I know very few people who like me enough to drive that far and the few I do were all at work, it being 9:30 on a Friday morning.
I neglected to mention that I no longer actually own a pair of corrective lenses. We outlaws don't like to give cops any information we don't have to.
The trooper eventually left me by the side of the road but not before warning me that if he caught me driving he'd tow my car and throw me in jail.
In the end, I called one of my co-wokers, Michelle Leonard, and made her leave the same training session I was late for when I got pulled over. She brought me to the training, then chauffeured me to a license center, where I took the eye exam -- without my glasses this time -- and got the restriction removed.
I felt a little bad about caving in so quickly. Who is The Man to tell me what I have to have on my face when I drive? Why shouldn’t I continue the Bad Boy life I had unwittingly been living for most of a year?
In the end, though, I pushed myself away from the Dark Side’s temptations. I figure it’s the wiser course of action. It’s not in my nature to scoff so openly at the laws of society. It’s just not who I am.
Besides, being an outlaw is hard.

What a chore

Every once in a while, mostly when I am not overly bothered by little things like financial realities, I think about buying a house. When I do, I often think about chores -- about mowing lawns and painting fences and fixing leaks and shoveling walks. The fact I find myself looking forward to these things is something I can only attribute to some form of early-onset dementia or the warning sign of diminishing mental capacity.
Clearly I have forgotten those years earlier in my life when I was pressed against my will into doing this kind of work. I mowed so many lawns growing up that they mostly blur into one long session either walking behind or sitting upon a mower. Sometimes I got paid. Sometimes I didn't. But did I ever actually enjoy it? No more than I enjoyed going to the dentist or smashing my head repeatedly into a concrete wall. And I've never enjoyed that much.
My only distinct lawn mowing-related memory involves snagging a lever on a riding mower in a volleyball net I had presumably left up in the interest of saving time. It is a story I remember mostly because it has been told frequently in the decade-plus since it happened, but the incident has been so warped by constant retelling that most people don't know the truth of it. If you believe my father, he came home from work to find the mower still running and me cowering -- apparently fearful of some violent retribution -- in a tree house.
The story is usually good for a few laughs, but makes some big assumptions. One, it assumes I was either so ignorant or so flustered by becoming ensnared I did not have my wits about me enough to turn the mower's key.
Second, it assumes the younger me believed my father placed such importance on the integrity of his volleyball net he was likely to punish me severely for foolishly befouling it with a riding lawn mower.
It's possible my father believes he was a more imposing figure than he actually was.
For the record, the lawn mower was turned off and I was inside when my father got home, most likely watching TV.
In any case, I'm not sure where these fond feelings about household chores originates, but the more I think about it rationally the more foolish it seems.
In recent week's I've had the chance to put these feelings to the test. Housesitting for a co-worker last month I was asked to water plants and mow the lawn. The lawn was not large and there was neither a volleyball net nor any other lawn-related games to impede my way. I won't claim it was difficult, but after walking behind that self-propelled mower for half an hour I found myself thinking less about the satisfaction of a job well done than about the wisdom of planting large wildflower gardens.
More recently, I offered to help as a sister, in an effort to keep water from seeping into her basement and collecting in a low spot that happened to be more or less under my desk chair, regraded an area along one side of her house. On Saturday and again on Monday we shoveled rocks, hauled dirt and put down plastic. My nephew helped from time to time. He picked up rocks for a while until a bug scared him away. Then he mostly climbed on the rock piles we had created and tried to rub his dirty hands in my hair.
It was hardly backbreaking labor, but it was hot. Especially on Saturday, when my efforts came after a 48-mile bike ride. The finished product seems to be making a difference, but I take no particular satisfaction in that. Mostly it makes me angry at a wall that couldn't even be bothered to keep out a little moisture. And there's nothing worse than getting mad at masonry.
I like to think things will be different if I'm ever doing this kind of work on a house I own. I like to think I'll take a kind of pride of ownership that will make me enjoy the neat-looking lawn or the leak-free basement I helped to create. More and more, though, I imagine myself doing these chores while thinking of all of the other fun things I could be doing. All of the books I could be reading. All of the bikes I could be riding. All of the reality television I could be watching.
Townhomes are pretty popular these days, aren't they?

We’ll always have Paris

When celebrity bubblehead Paris Hilton recently declared herself a generation’s iconic blond — comparing herself to figures such as Marilyn Monroe and Princess Diana — it was enough to spur at least one Time magazine reader to action. That reader wrote a letter declaring, in short, that Paris is not fit to carry those women’s night-vision handicams.
Now, a person could argue the merits of debating anything Paris Hilton says. Spending any amount of time considering anything that comes out of the “Simple Life” star’s mouth seems like it would be as stimulating as holding a three-day conference to discuss the merits of Coke versus Pepsi. Either way, you’re going to feel empty and a little bit gassy.
In this case, though, it’s especially foolish. Because in this case Paris might actually be right.
Trust me, it hurt to type that just now. Aside from her notable contribution to the “‘Stolen’ sex tape as publicity device,” boom of recent years, a notable accomplishment in its own right, I can’t see any value Paris Hilton has brought to this world. I’m vaguely surprised she was able to use the word “iconic” in the proper context.
But the letter-writer’s claim that Paris did not belong in the same category as Monroe or Princess Di because she lacks the “inner beauty” those women had overlooks one important factor: Paris Hilton’s generation is not about inner beauty. It’s about skin deep. It’s about judging books by their covers. It’s about Dancing with the Stars and Us magazine’s Style Watch.
Consider this: We live in a world where Paris Hilton, who in some bizarre circular fashion appears to be famous solely because she is famous, and who does not appear to have any discernible talent, has published a book. Even worse, we live in a world in which Paris Hilton has published multiple books and continues to appear in a regular television show. Worse still, it’s a world in which even Paris’ obnoxiously tiny dog has published a book. And people apparently are buying them. I’ll admit I haven’t read any of these books (I assume this puts me on an even playing field with Paris), but I can’t imagine people are buying them for their deep philosophical insight. Kant she ain’t.
America, it appears, is fascinated by Paris Hilton. I know this because I see her vacant, vaguely plasticine face everywhere I look. For crying out loud, I can’t even flip through Time without seeing her name.
Who better than Paris Hilton, then, to serve as the iconic blond of a generation of Real World-watching, American Idol-voting, Paris Hilton-listening (Oh, yeah, she’s got a CD out now, too. It’s as terrible as you might imagine and it’s got a cover of Rod Stewart’s Do Ya Think I’m Sexy.) Americans.
I find it somehow ironic that the letter in question appeared in an issue about high-achieving high school students choosing the right college for them.
Besides, are these other so-called blond icons the writer jumps to defend really so great? Sure, Princess Di did a lot of good. She appeared on more People Magazine covers than anyone in history, and there’s the whole landmine thing. But what else was she going to do? It’s not like she had to worry about the rigors of shooting a reality TV show and launching a perfume or going to, like, lots and lots of parties. Text messaging wasn’t even invented in those days.
And Princess Di had palaces full of servants to help her every day. Poor Paris only has mansions full.
I’m pretty sure Princess Di wasn’t even American, although she gets credit for inspiring Elton John enough that when she died he changed like, two words in his song about Marilyn Monroe to create a tribute to her.
I can’t claim any firsthand experience with Marilyn Monroe. I would have liked to have known her, but I wasn’t even a kid.
Based on what little I know, though, I see more parallels than differences between Marilyn and Paris. Paris has her sex tape. Marilyn had her appearance in Playboy, the celebrity sex tape of its time.
Paris Hilton has appeared in terrible movies. Marilyn Monroe appeared in several classic films, although it could be argued her acting played a relatively minor role. Be honest: is The Seven Year Itch a classic because Marilyn Monroe so thoroughly inhabited the role of “The Girl,” as imdb.com credits her, or because she was willing to let Billy Wilder blow hot air up her skirt?
In her defense, Paris Hilton has not died of a drug overdose. Yet.
And if she really wants to be the icon of this generation she won’t. She’ll die of a heart attack brought on by eating every meal at McDonalds and never exercising. And it’ll happen while she’s watching “The Biggest Loser.”