Fall Is In The Air

Brrrr!

The thermometer dipped below 55 this morning – it’s clear that fall is in the air…

Fall brings the end of the summer (and JonBon’s annual Labor Day bash, to which my invitation was once again stolen from my mailbox *pout*), which ordinarily would put me in a mood, since I am always cold, and the only time I’m truly comfortable is when the heat index is flirting with 100. But Fall is also when my beautiful son was born. It’s when my father celebrates his birthday (along with dozens of cousins, in-laws and friends). It’s when I start the 8-month ordeal that is otherwise known as pee-wee hockey.

It’s also when football season starts.

There are only a few things I love more than Bon Jovi. My family (close and extended), my network of friends, the sound of a baby laughing, the smell of cut grass, and football.

I can’t put across just how much this sport means to me. Not just the enjoyment I receive in watching the game, but the memories the MEANING the game has for me.

Some of my earliest memories of time spent with my dad include football. He worked 80 hours a week to support us when we were small. He was never home for dinner, but was always home before we went to bed. He’d sit on the sofa, and my brother and I would pull his shoes off and climb up into his lap for snuggles and kisses. Then we’d be off to bed, my mother would feed daddy, and we’d be one day closer to Sunday, when he was always home.

We actually have this board

I have lots of great childhood memories of my Daddy. In the summer, we would play outside, swimming, or basketball, or board games under the sun. We learned to play cribbage at an old picnic table set up alongside the pool one steamy summer in the 80’s – a game we still enjoy and play with my dad every chance we get. We’d listen to baseball on the radio, my brother and I would fetch beers from the cooler for him, and we’d stay out long past when the crickets grew quiet.

In the winter, my brother and would build snow forts while Dad shoveled, and no matter how much snow we knocked back into the driveway, he would never yell. Daddy would dig a hole in the snow on the side yard so our dog could have someplace to “make”, and taught us how to make the perfect snowballs.

In the spring, he’d mow the lawn, cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth as he pushed the old non-motorized walk-behind back and forth across the yard.

But in the fall.

Mom would make the most amazing breakfast before we’d go off to church. Always the 11:30 Mass, and we were home by 12;45. Because at 1:00 we had a standing date. With Daddy. And the television.

The New York Football Giants,
Thank you very much

We’d watch the NFL faithfully every Sunday. My brother would be tucked on my dad’s right side, and I’d be on the left. We’d cuddle in close, and be warned not to repeat anything my Daddy said, because he’d be known to let a “shit” or “dammit” fly during the course of the game. We’d watch the game, learning to spot an I-formation or to cringe when the defense played zone instead of man coverage at an inopportune time. We learned to call the flags before they were thrown. We learned the names and numbers of our favorite Patriots. We learned it was wrong, wrong, WRONG to root for the New York Jets, but it was so right to respect and root for the New York Football Giants -- unless they were playing the Pats.

Over the years, we’ve laughed at the “expansion team Cleveland Browns – wait, what?”, and watched the skill level of our beloved New England Patriots peak and plummet. Somewhere before I was ten, I learned to mix the perfect Johnny Red and water – a fact that would have DSS pounding on the door now-a-days. I learned that when Daddy gets excited, and jumps up off the sofa, hands raised in victorious celebration, he’s a bit too tall for the living room, and will bloody his knuckles on the skip-trowled ceiling.

When I graduated from college and landed my first real paying job, the very first thing I did, before moving out of my parents’ house or buying a car, was to fork over $100 to the New England Patriots and get on the waiting list for season tickets. At that time, the waiting list was long – not as long as today, but long enough that I put the hold in my would-be-married name, even though Mr. Hath and I were not speaking at the time.

Foxboro Stadium

As someone on the wait list, I had the privilege of purchasing two-game packages every April. It was always one preseason and one regular-season game, four tickets to each, but it was LIVE FOOTBALL. The first year I got them, I put a pair into the Father’s Day card for my Daddy. It was only the third time I’d ever seen him with tears in his eyes. (My wedding and the first time held my son were the other two times).

Six years later (and now married, and with a much better job), I got the post card telling me we were in. In the House. Foxboro Stadium. With its monster 40 degree incline hill from the lot to the stadium gates, and the cold, hard, metal benches. With its Zolack and Grogan and Tuna and snow and rain and absolutely no protection from the elements whatsoever. GLORIOUS!

Gillette Stadium

Every year since then, except the 2000 Season (in August of that year, I was SO pregnant the doctors thought a sneeze would start labor, and after that, my Hathlet was too new to leave with my mother, for even an instant) we have gone to every home game at first Foxboro, and now Gillette. A few games a year we sell to family or friends, but for the most part, it’s all us – Daddy, Mr. Hath, myself, and either a friend, my brother, or Hathlet.

Neither rain, nor snow, nor sleet, nor hail shall keep this Patriots fan from her appointed games.

And it’s bliss. Pure bliss. Even though it can get cold.

We got through 8 batteries
each per game!

For some reason, I don’t notice the cold when I’m tailgating in the parking lot with my dad. We all huddle under the tent with a small heater for comfort, and a Coleman lantern for light. We sit at on a Patriots-emblazoned card table while Dad rests in his Patriots chair. Mr. Hath cooks on the grill no matter what the elements are doing, and we play endless hands of cribbage. When Daddy turned 60, my brother and I had a “Happy Birthday John” message put on the scoreboard for him, and he smiled for a week.

Every fall for the past twelve years, we dust off our tailgating equipment, try to remember how we pack Mr. Hath’s truck, shake out our game jerseys, find our pompoms and battery-heated socks, and prepare for another season in the cold. Why? Because it’s football and we love it.

Really, do you need an
explanation here?

What business does this have being on a Bon Jovi blog? Last year, two of my favorite things joined together when the Patriots adopted This Is Our House as their touchdown celebration song. At this past Sunday’s game, there was Bon Jovi all over the place. Have a Nice Day was played in the time before kickoff. This Is Our House was played many times, as our Pats had a great game. The cheerleaders danced to Bad Name. And my Dad just smiled at me. “This song is from your boys, isn’t it?” he’d ask, every time a different song played.

Yes, Daddy, they are. And now he can share them with me through our love of football.

~ Hath