Thanksgiving High School Football Redux...

 

My sister has been coming to Florida for Thanksgiving every year since she was fifteen, when my Dad moved here. Even after marrying and having 2 children of her own she (and they) made the trip - that's twenty-nine years of schlepping. I'd moved to Florida right after high school graduation, so my schlepping stopped a long time ago. At last year's Thanksgiving dinner Deb invited us all to Connecticut for Thanksgiving 2009, and we gladly obliged.

I'd become used to those Florida (and sometimes Bahamas) Thanksgivings. They were very different from the ones I remember from my early years. From the time I was a little girl until the year I graduated high school Thanksgiving mornings were always spent at a high school football game. At first it was with family friends at whatever school as nearby, then later at our own dear NBTHS when first my sister and then I joined our the marching band. Deb and I would rush home from the game, change and run to the airport so we could be in Florida at my Dad's table for Thanksgiving dinner.

After graduating I never gave it another thought. Even though I'd moved to Florida I had no allegiance to the local high school, so the tradition faded into nothingness.

But then this year we were in Connecticut, not Florida. And my nephew, Cal, a senior (!!!) in high school, was marching for the last time with the Cheshire Band, for the Thanksgiving Game's halftime show. Of course we were going!

 

It wasn't very cold, really, but it was the coldest day since we'd been in Connecticut. My brother bought hot chocolate for the kids, and we settled in to watch the pre-game ceremonies. As I watched the senior football players walk onto the field with their parents I was hit with a wave of nostalgia so strong it brought tears to my eyes. It was like I was there in the moment, but I was also going back to my own last high school football game at the same time.

 

Thinking about what it meant to those kids to be playing in their last game. Thinking about their parents, who were so proud yet so very much wanting time to stand still. And when my nephew's name was called I wondered how my sister and brother-in-law held themselves together. They were so proud! And I was a very proud auntie.

It was weird and wonderful and I can't wait to experience it all as a parent, too.


Here are some of my favorite images from the game...