Unlikely Friends

It’s football season. I can smell it in the air. There’s a dairy farm not far from my house that becomes especially pungent in the early fall, so I can literally smell football season.

And, with it comes a renewed sense of allegiance to one’s alma mater. People will paint their houses in accordance with school colors and are flying enormous stadium flags above their homes to ward off claims of being merely fair-weather fans. But, it isn’t just the colors.
Overnight people have become experts in the game. My office is filled with people who would apparently make better coaches than the ones currently employed by their universities. Individuals whom you would think new less about football than my little sister are all of a sudden keenly aware of the statistics and future prospects of an offensive lineman who plays second string for a school half way across the country. This season also results in strange friendships. Alumni bond together in a way never witnessed while actually attending school. Rooting in the stands, individuals who share absolutely no common bond other than that team whose colors they bear on their faces and sometimes bare bellies, become comrades in battle -sharing the elation of victory and mourning together at a loss. These relationships can’t last forever; everyone knows it. So, while the stadium flags still fly and while the smell of dairy farm is still thick in the air, look to your right and to your left and be grateful for these unlikely friendships. These brothers and sisters, who actually know just as little about football as you do, will all return to their normal lives in 6 months, so take a deep breath…then scream until you lose you voice.