It was the perfect ending to a perfect football weekend.
As I sat in my big chair (aka: My chair, Dad's chair, comfy chair, not your chair), I relished that on my 18th wedding anniversary my lovely bride would let me enjoy the final football game of the weekend. As fate would have it, the perfect football weekend didn't end as I had imagined or hoped it would. It was like a house of cards built to a personal record height with only one card left to go and then.......BOOM!
I had already prepped the kids on Friday during the day to be ready to entertain themselves on Saturday as I was going to watch two different football games back to back and nothing, NOTHING would keep me from having that time to myself. After the Angleton win I could finally put my electronic tethers down and get some sleep for the next big day.
Saturday morning came in unusual fashion as neither my wife or kids had work or any birthday parties or ball games or scouting events to be at early in the morning that would keep us from sleeping in. To my surprise, I was awakened at 9:30am with a message that the kids had just received their 30 minute warning to abandon the living room TV and yes......MY CHAIR! Feeling confident that the day would be productive, ( I would not be interuppted ), I prepared my surroundings for a full day of football. Noticing that I only had one cold beer left in the garage fridge, I strategically planned when would be the appropriate time to run out of beer. Hopefully, it would be sometime during the first game of the day....Oklahoma vs. Texas!!
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Oklahoma naturally beat (and beat hard) the Texas Longhorns so minor interuptions during the game really didn't bother me. I mean really, who benefits more if the kids have a friend over to play...them or me? ME naturally because now I'm not in charge the days entertainment! Yee Ha! Did I mention Oklahoma won? Perhaps 'dominated' would be a better descriptor. Winning 55-17 I would say would be dominating.
So far so good....one game down....one to go, and oh yeah, I ran out of beer a long time ago. The household is cooperating pretty good now. The kids have a friend over and are upstairs playing, the wife is getting ready for her high school reunion, which by the way I don't have to go to..HA, and between selfishly making myself more comfortable and offering my dutiful husbandly opinion on which outfit looks best, I frantically searched for the second game of the day....Sam Houston State University (my alma mater) and Stephen F. Austin State University (the wife's alma mater).
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It's billed as "The Battle of the Piney Woods". At our house it's my team vs. your team. Rarely do these teams rank regional broadcasting but since this is a long time rivalry, they played the game at Reliant Stadium. I guess they figured that there would be 75k fans between the two teams so they could fill up the stadium. More than likely it's because most of the alumni live in the greater Houston area and not even for "the game" would they travel to Nacogdoches to see a game. No, there was not 75k fans! A pretty ho-hum game from the beginning but by the second quarter, "my team" started to beat "her team". But since the next day was my 18th wedding anniversary and I learned well before getting married, (thanks Dad), there were unwritten rules to marriage and gloating was definitly not one of them, I kept my mouth shut and made sure I told her how beautiful her booty was as she tried on her outfit for the evening.
That game ended and if the day couldn't get any better...one child was invited over to another friends house for a couple of hours and the other child went over to the first friends house for a couple of hours. I was beginning to think that I was now a lightweight and couldn't even handle one beer! My bride had already left for her reunion and the kids were gone so now it was ...... BONUS GAME TIME!
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Texas A&M was in Lubbock playing Texas Tech. Not that I really strongly root for either team but since family lives in College Station and the best Nena in the world is a Texas Tech graduate (but understands her plight), and since my daughter wants to go to Texas A&M in 8 years to study veterinary medicine, I figured why the hell not. This was a bonus great game. Close all the way to the end and by the time it was over, the kids were back home, upstairs in bed, and I was on lockdown for the night. However, I did have the one exception to stay awake until my bride returned home from her reunion. Unless I'm camping with the scouts, going to sleep alone not having her there is awful lonely. AWWWW
Who would have guessed the next morning would have brought so many blessings? Blessing #1, my wife kept me around 18 years. Blessing #2, it was raining the best it has in the past 13 months and the desert scape in the front yard was getting some of God's tears. Blessing #3, the kids (11 years old and 9 years old) served us breakfast in bed...pancakes! Blessing #4, I got out of bed just in time to watch the Houston Texans game (at noon).
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Houston vs. Oakland is a rivalry that goes way back! Many of my fond pro football armchair memories come from these two teams. Anyway, to recap the weekend; my high school team won; the University of Texas Longhorns lost; my alma mater beat her alma mater; and my brothers family is happy in Aggieland! I'm married to the best woman in the world, we have rain, two of the best kids on the planet made us breakfast and didn't make a big mess in the kitchen and it's time for Sunday Football!
The Houston Texans were doing their best to lose the game all afternoon but were showing signs of brilliance down to the wire. The Oakland Raiders had the ghost of Al Davis pushing them all the way to the end of the game and it was coming down to the wire. With only seconds left in the game, the Texans were down 20 to 25 but were on the 5 yard line. The ball is snapped, Schaub goes left out of the pocket and on TV it appeared that the only thing between him, on the six yard line, and the endzone was one defender. There couldn't have been anyone ten yards to either the left or the right and only six yards to go and what does he do? He throws the ball right into one of the only two defenders on that side of the field. Game over. Six yards shy of the goaline, the perfect football weekend is over. It can no longer be considered the perfect football weekend because the last team didn't pull through for me. Or am I being selfish?
After a few hours of reflection, being irritable, judging others, and generally not listening, I realized after 3 years it was time to renew my posts to this blog. FINALLY....something came to mind that I had already put together in my head and was ready to write down.
You know, after all, I think I did have the perfect weekend. Notice I left out 'football'? I was able to relax, enjoy God's blessing of rain, God's blessing of my wife, God's blessing of my kids, and God's blessing that allowed grown men to dedicate 60 minutes of all out effort to a man that helped build the NFL. God's blessing that had UT lose AGAIN, is just a cherry on top!
I need to remember as I go through life that I can't let 6 yards keep me down when there are so many other things to be thankful for that I need not lose sight of. Just because I selfishly can't have everything I desire, I know there are many more things that on a day to day basis I take for granted and if I were to base my life on one end result, I would be cheating myself on the things I do have and that I have accomplished. There are a few special people in my life that I hope have a chance to read this and persevere and press on in life. Now is not the time to be down on yourself or to give up. God Bless.
