Saturday, September 26, 2009

A Beautiful Friday Night

Picture it with me...small town living on a Friday night in September. The rain is falling intermittently. You can smell the burn piles in town on this crisp early autumn evening. Everywhere you look, you see a sea of blue and white. You find a seat, brush the water off the bleachers and snuggle up with your family of three in a space meant for two.

It's Homecoming night in Ashland. The band is playing the national anthem, slightly out of tune. It's a small town band, and the damp weather is wreaking havoc on their intonation. The band itself is made up of people in marching uniforms, dance team costumes and cheerleading skirts. You see, in a small town, these kids are involved in many, many activities.

Now you hear a whoosh of air as a hot dog is launched from a hydraulic cannon into the stands. Dinner consists of hot dogs, nachos and a candy bar (surreptitiously hidden from a four-year-old who doesn't need it as much as her parents do.)

This same four-year-old sees her eight-year-old friend and very politely asks permission to sit with her friend's family (yes...we're letting her wander from us at an early age...the letting go was a little hard.) From our vantage point, we catch glimpses of these precious girls sharing a bag of gummy worms (so she does get a sugar kick, after all).

Shortly after halftime, the young-ish family of three walks nine blocks home. Along the way, we are instructed to play "Dora" (let me tell you...Daddy makes a pretty cool "Swiper.")

Honestly, could a Friday night be any more perfect than this?

1 comment:

Joy Pierce said...

I love making memories like these!!! How fun! I love fall in Nebraska, it is all about a good football game! Tonight we all got a piece of card stock and were instructed to draw 2 pictures of places we would like to go on vacation next year....no words, we had to guess from the pictures. Seattle and Chicago were the top 2 picks. Kind of fun, especially for those of us who are artistically challenged! : )