One of the best things about the OU-Texas game is the pomp and circumstance that surround it. For Sooner and Longhorn fans, it's not just a game, it's an event, an entire weekend, something that is circled on the calendar like a holiday or a birthday.
Don't get me wrong, the game is important. In fact beating Texas is probably more important to me than it should be ... but what matters to me the most every year on the second Saturday in October, is actually not the game. It's the people.
Jobs, kids, health, finances – hell, just making it through an average Tuesday takes all you have sometimes. One of the consequences from ‘not enough hours in the day’ is that you unintentionally drift away from some of the people in your life who are important. But Sooner football, and the OU-Texas games in particular, has provided the necessary where and why that brings us together ... even if only for a few hours … even if only for one day.
Sitting on those picnic tables outside the main gate of the Cotton Bowl before the game is where I get to see people like Dave McCabe, Tim Sanders, Blake & Sally Moffatt, Val & Diana Schlueter, Craig & Kathy Cruzen, Jeff Rogers, Trevor Walker, Bob Click and dozens of other fraternity brothers I should do a better job of keeping up with.
It's when I get to spend some time catching up and/or fighting with my friend Natalie, who has put up with me for almost 40 years ... and it’s where I get to share a 7-coupon warm beer in a wax cup with Scott McKnight's dad, Gary.
Like a measurement mark on a basement wall, the OU-TX game is where I get a chance to see the progress my friends kids have made in their pursuit of growing up. It’s were I watched Craigy Sanders become Craig ... Matt McCabe go from diapers to tall enough to dunk on his dad … the Cruzen boys go from grade school sports to college graduates ... and a trio of Lambert boys go from baby talk - to smooth talking the sorority babes.
Calling OU-TX only a game to me, is like saying the Bible is just a book. Sorry, I'm not buying that.
But this past Saturday morning my alarm didn’t go off at 7:00 AM. I didn’t threaten to leave anybody who wasn’t in the car at 8:00 AM. I didn’t play Stairway to Heaven as loud as possible on the way to the game, nor did I hand some non-English speaking man flapping an orange flag, $40.00 in order to park.
I didn’t have to worry about what I’d left in the car while walking to the gate, nor did I have to hide my two-flasks of Crown before going through Fair Park ‘security.’ I did however have a few beers before the game … but none of them were warm, served in a wax paper cup, paid for with last year’s left-over coupons, or handed to me by an unwashed, orthodontically challenged State Fair employee.
Turns out that no routine, regardless of how sacred, is safe in 2020. Yes, the streak is over … For the first time since 1982, there was no guy named Buddy Putty sitting in the Cotton Bowl at the OU-Texas game.
I still watched the game of course– and did so with some of my best friends, friends I’m lucky and grateful to have. I know they’re my friends, because no one who wasn’t would put up with the way I behave during a game – and I’m pushing it with some of them.
That said, there was a part of me missing Saturday. Something that made me feel hollow. It made me think of the answer my friend Styx gave me when I asked him what it was like to watch the game on TV. My question was in jest, his answer was anything but, “I’ll be honest, it sucks. It makes you wonder why you’re not there.” Amen.
I guess I always knew there would finally come a day that I wouldn’t be able to be there in person. Reasons like … my behavior finally resulted in me being banned, or my less than healthy lifestyle had me taking up space in Gods waiting room. Maybe I wouldn’t go if the game got moved to Jerry’s World – or if the powers that be decided to make the game a home and home series – thus killing what is one of the few long-standing traditions left in all of sports. But whatever the reason, I never dreamed my streak of attending OU-TX games would end because some moron ate a raw bat in a Wuhan, China wet market.
Look, obviously, I'll be okay ... on the list of things wrong with me, this one falls well down the list. This shouldn’t be anything a few thousand dollars in therapy can’t fix. Besides, judging from history, I probably should've seen this coming ... after all, I'm not the first Bud in Sooner history to have a streak end after 38-straight.
Next Up: Part 2 – Game Day
Just the Opinion of One Mildly Interested Guy
Buddy Putty - The Overweight Armchair Sooner
No comments:
Post a Comment