{"id":344,"date":"2018-06-01T15:15:57","date_gmt":"2018-06-01T19:15:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/writingaroundtheworld.net\/?p=344"},"modified":"2018-06-01T15:16:13","modified_gmt":"2018-06-01T19:16:13","slug":"first-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/writingaroundtheworld.net\/?p=344","title":{"rendered":"First Down"},"content":{"rendered":"
Posted in\u00a0General<\/a>\u00a0–\u00a020 January 2013<\/a>\u00a0– No comment<\/div>\n

\u201cSmash\u2019em,\u201d E yells from the bleachers.
\n\u201cGive\u2019em L!\u201d I say.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re sitting just behind the band. A player from the other team gets smashed. He doesn\u2019t get up. The band plays \u201cAnother One Bites the Dust\u201d while the motionless player lies on the ground.<\/p>\n

\u201cShouldn\u2019t they stop?\u201d I say.
\n\u201cGet the cart. Drag\u2019em off,\u201d E says. I can\u2019t help but laugh.<\/p>\n

M wants a snack. But of course. It\u2019s been an hour since dinner.<\/p>\n

An ambulance pulls up just beyond the fence, and I count as the paramedics jog the thirty yards to the victim. I motion the first down symbol. They load the kid on a stretcher and roll him off.<\/p>\n

Finally. Football. \u201cC\u2019mon defense! Get\u2019em,\u201d I say. It\u2019s third and two from the thirty. You can\u2019t win a game on field goals, but you can lose a game on field goals. They miss a field goal.<\/p>\n

The band is quiet. Huh. The drum player has brown hair hanging in his eyes. A chubby girl rubs her hands through it. The flute player, also a girl, is standing to his right side with her right hip cocked. Another girl, this one wearing purple striped leg warmers, clutches his left arm. A boy behind him, on our row, is holding the drummer\u2019s extra drumsticks and staring. Earlier, I saw him beat a tamborine, in rhythm, against his thigh. His eyes were closed. It takes me back eighteen years, when I banged on pots and pans with a spoon. I spent a large portion of that summer in Hilo. I lived in a two bedroom shack with six other people. The natives didn\u2019t like foreigners, including mainland folks. I thought life was tough because we didn\u2019t have a dishwasher or a dryer. We stayed in at night, grilling our fish, hanging our tie-dyed shirts on a clothesline, banging pots and pans and singing to the Allman Bros. We were much better than the Logan High band.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a four or five-year-old dancing in front of us, but he\u2019s on his knees. E doesn\u2019t think he can\u2019t walk. A lot of Utah children can\u2019t. He told me before that it\u2019s where the term U-tard comes from.<\/p>\n

M wants a hot chocolate and my favorite brown blanket as a trade for the shitty green one. As usual, I relinquish the blanket. Everything but cats and Golden Corral. S wants a hot chocolate, too. I\u2019m good with my carmenerie that is disguised in my chamo mug.<\/p>\n

Logan scores! The band doesn\u2019t seem to notice. Neither do the cheerleaders. Wait. They\u2019re doing push-ups on the field. Their butts are a foot higher than their backs; some aren\u2019t bending their arms. Their bloomers are all matching white. When I was a cheerleader, I could do push ups.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m in the process of getting my teacher\u2019s certification. Funny, I am qualified to teach college but not high school. I went for advising at Utah State. Auburn beat them the first game last season. Auburn hardly beat anyone this season. \u201cYou\u2019ll need three semesters and a student teaching semester, which is fifteen weeks.\u201d What I hear is, \u201cfifteen weeks without pay.\u201d I have four degrees! She must see my forty-year-old concern \u201cSorry. Bush\u2019s \u2018No Child Left Behind.’\u201d M can\u2019t write or read cursive. Is she left behind?<\/p>\n

The visiting team scores. The band plays \u201cAnother One Bites the Dust.\u201d I don\u2019t get it. I thought that was a tribute to the fallen angel, or player. Did the U-tard fall down the bleachers?<\/p>\n

\u201cC\u2019mon Grizzlies! What are you doing?\u201d I say. I hope they don\u2019t throw the ball to Beau on these downs. He sucks. When I subbed, I caught him cheating on his anatomy test. I gave him an F+ to make the pain more bearable.<\/p>\n

The Grizzlies lost. No one really cares. No one cares about football here. They always clap for the team that is winning. Then, the SEC gets a hold of them and they don\u2019t remember who they were cheering for to begin with. Better luck next year, Grizzlies. Better luck next year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Posted in\u00a0General\u00a0–\u00a020 January 2013\u00a0– No comment \u201cSmash\u2019em,\u201d E yells from the bleachers. \u201cGive\u2019em L!\u201d I say. We\u2019re sitting just behind the band. A player from the other team gets smashed. He doesn\u2019t get up. The band plays \u201cAnother One Bites the Dust\u201d while the motionless player lies on the ground. \u201cShouldn\u2019t they stop?\u201d I say. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/writingaroundtheworld.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/writingaroundtheworld.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/writingaroundtheworld.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writingaroundtheworld.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writingaroundtheworld.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=344"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/writingaroundtheworld.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":346,"href":"https:\/\/writingaroundtheworld.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344\/revisions\/346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/writingaroundtheworld.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writingaroundtheworld.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writingaroundtheworld.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}