I
really didn’t know what to expect. Cindy
and I were taking Krischan to his first Florida Gator football game at Ben Hill
Griffin Stadium, AKA ‘the Swamp.’ The
Gators, under new Head Coach Jim McElwain were playing the Pirates of East
Carolina under the lights; in other words the game would still only be in the
third quarter about the time our grandson would ordinarily be going to
bed. Not only that, Krischan has the
attention span any six-year old would have—not particularly conducive to
watching a game he knows very little about and will take more than three hours
to play. So I approached this game as
if I were heading into the Great Unknown, because for all intents and purposes
I was doing just that.
However,
here’s what I DID know on the front end:
·
When I turn on
the television in the fall to watch college football and Krischan is around he
looks at the screen with both eyes wide open and rhetorically (yes, I realize he doesn’t know what the
word means) asks ‘more football?’
·
More on
Saturdays: When one game finishes and another begins, Krischan will glance up
at the screen and exclaim ‘another
game?’ (Note: This is usually repeated
several more times throughout the day.)
·
We took Krischan
to the College Football Hall of Fame last year.
Krischan met and had his photograph taken with 1996 Heisman Trophy
winner Danny Wuerffel. Danny tried his
best to coax a smile and/or a Gator ‘chomp’ out of him; Krischan wouldn’t give
him the time of day. Had it been one of
the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?
Different story.
·
Earlier this year
we took Krischan to Gainesville, the home of the University of Florida for the
first time. We visited an empty Swamp
and Krischan had a blast running up and down the bleachers and climbing all
over the large bronze alligators at two of the entrances. But when we asked him to sit in front of the
bronze statue of Danny Wuerffel for a photo he had a frown on his face the size
of a football.
In
other words I didn’t have any expectation of Krischan being—how shall I say
it---cooperative for much more than
two quarters.
Let
me be the first to say: I was wrong. Dead
wrong.
The
kid had the time of his young life. As
we drove near the stadium looking for a place to park Krischan pointed out
every single Gator fan he saw. Not only
did he point them out he made sure they were identified: ‘LOOK! A GATOR FAN!
LOOK!! ANOTHER GATOR FAN!! He also pointed out Gator tents, Gator
coolers, Gator cars, Gator trucks, Gator flags (‘How come we don’t have a Gator flag on OUR car, G-PA?’) and
anything else he saw in his two favorite colors, orange and blue.
I
wondered how long this enthusiasm could possibly last. Hope for the best but prepare for the worst,
I always say.
You’ll
never believe this, but I got what I hoped for: The best night I could have
possibly imagined (if you don’t factor in how poorly the Gators played at
times, that is).
The
short version: Krischan had an absolute blast.
He cheered for the Gators. He
booed the Pirates (East Carolina). He
booed the referees (when I did, that is).
He learned the Gator cheers Cindy and I have done for more than four
decades. He did the Gator Chomp; many,
many times (Danny Wuerffel would have been so proud). He stood at the end of the third quarter,
stood between Cindy and I and swayed back and forth singing We are the Boys from Old Florida, a
University of Florida tradition since the early 1930’s. He had a smile on his face the size of two footballs every time the Gators
scored a touchdown and the fireworks lit up the sky directly over where we were
sitting.
·
Sure, he was
thirsty near the end of the first quarter and wanted me to get him a drink. We were dead center of a really long
jam-packed aisle with about four inches of leg room; there was no way I was
going to make it out alive. ‘I’ll get it at halftime,’ I said. ‘When
is that?’ ‘In about 30 more minutes’ (I under exaggerated ever-so-slightly).
·
Sure, he asked me
to take him to the restroom in the middle of the second quarter. ‘We’ll
go at halftime,’ I said. ‘When is that?’ This time I could tell my
answer needed to be a bit more specific.
‘When the scoreboard shows all
zero’s on the clock’ (there were 11 minutes and 11 seconds—11:11—remaining on
the clock at the time). Fortunately for
me Krischan didn’t realize 11 minutes and 11 seconds on the game clock
translated to 30 or more minutes of real time.
Fortunately for Krischan there was so much action to absorb and sights
to behold that he failed to notice the time on the clock wasn’t always
‘moving.’
·
Sure, we waited
in line in the men’s room after the second quarter for a good five minutes only
to discover the urinal was placed too high on the wall for a six-year old and
then we had to wait another five minutes for a stall.
·
Sure, he wanted
something to eat at halftime and we stood in line waiting for an overpriced
soft pretzel well into the third quarter…a pretzel he barely touched because it
had ‘too much salt.’
But
when all was said and done things couldn’t have turned out any better. Krischan officially became a Gator (I told
him so after he swayed to We are the
Boys), the Gators won the football game and on the way to the car
afterwards Krischan had this to say:
‘G-Pa, that was the best day I ever
had.’
Music
to my ears.
