My Weekend Under the Carrier Dome

I spent a good part of last weekend in the Carrier Dome.  By 11:30 A.M. on Saturday, I had listened to the marching band playing on the quad, patted the Ernie Davis statue on the foot, and entered through Gate N, to make my way to my seat in Row R, 3 rows from the roof.  I hadn’t climbed the Dome steps in awhile.  Those are steep suckers, let me tell you.

As the crowd slowly filled in, I saw that I was sitting in an area with 3 or 4 sober and football-interested adult couples.  Good. Then shortly before kickoff, the uppermost rows were suddenly invaded by some. . .very interesting football fans.  More about them in a moment.  The section two over to the right from where I sat was made up nearly entirely of LSU fans in their purple and gold t-shirts with statements like “Geaux Tigers” printed on them.  They were a roaring and devoted group.  Not evenly slightly obnoxious.

Now, about the game. . .probably everyone knows it was about as terrific as a game can be when you lose.  Tons of kudos to the Orange players and coaches for crafting a really fun afternoon on the gridiron.  I had a great time, although at times it was challenging because of the “very interesting fans” I mentioned before.  

To my immediate right was a group of about 20 “interesting fans.”  When they came roaring up the stairs together, my first thought was that they had been dropped off by the “Incorrigible and Unrepentant” bus.  Noise, spilled beer, profanity abounded.  One really big guy sat at the end of the row with a twisted look on his face.  When the Tiger fans would roar in appreciation of their team, he would roar profanely at them and flip them off.  Also in the group was a woman who looked like the puppet “Madam.”  There’s nothing wrong with looking that way, but it is wrong to shout at an SU player who was getting attention to an injury on the field, to “get up off your g****m ass!”

To my immediate right was a group of 20+ “interesting fans.”  Some of these fans were fine, but a lot were 28 year-olds pretending they were still teenagers and being as obnoxious as they possibly could be by recalling the immaturity of their youth while consuming large quantities of beer.  Their major schtick was to be constantly jawing at the top of their lungs at the LSU crowd to the right.  They also would shout that they were about to come over their and kick some whoop ass any minute on them Louisiana folk.  I wanted to correct their behavior.  It was the teacher in me!  I wanted to start with something like “you infantile morons. . .” but I bit my lip and watched the game.  Just as well,  By the end of the contest, the un-teens had mellowed out and were actually talking jovially to a couple of LSU fans they had spent the afternoon cursing at.  And the other adults who sat about me and I had never found it necessary to flee.  Perhaps, there is hope for the future.

I left the Dome and walked the mile or so to where I had parked my car off Euclid Avenue.  The afternoon was gorgeous, and I headed home to sit on our new deck and have a beer that didn’t cost $7.50.

I was back at the Dome by about noon the next day.  This time I had to pay for parking because of the overlap in opposite side parking laws.  At 6:00 P.M. in the university area, you have to move your car to the opposite side of the street.  It was probable that the event would run until well after 6:00.  I knew a real good, close-by Dome lot.  Fifteen bucks later I was parked 200 yards from the entrance.

I was in the Dome to watch the Bronze Medal and Gold Medal games of the World Indoor Lacrosse Championships.  Indoor or box lacrosse is a tough game played by teams of 6, goalie included.  It’s much like hockey with line exchanges, power plays, amazing speed, and tons of checking.  No fights, though.  There is even a 30 second shot clock, which I guess is a nod to basketball.  The USA won the Bronze by doing a job on Israel.  The names of some of the players on the Israeli team made me think that a lot of these guys weren’t born in the homeland.  Starters included Harper, Miller, Hawkins, Culp, and Smith, probably US or Canada born Israeli team members.  The most interesting part of the box lacrosse get-up is the goalie uniform.  These guys have so much padding that they look like the Michelin man.  The Gold Medal game between Canada and the Iroquois National Team was great with Canada winning by 4 goals.  Canada has a big time box lacrosse league, I understand, and their players at the tournament are pros.  The Thompsons, Randy Staats, and other terrifc Iroquois players were not quite up to the speed and strength of the Canadians.  The Iroquois players have amazing stick ability, though.

A bit after 6:00, I went to my car to head home; my weekend “under the Carrier Dome” was over.  It had been a terrific sports weekend, although kind of expensive.  Saturday’s football game cost $51 for my ticket, $4.00 for a hotdog, $7.50 for a beer, and $4.50 for a Pepsi.  My total was $67 to see the football game.  Not too bad.  Lacrosse day was more expensive starting with a $41 ticket, $15 to park, $7.50 for nachos, $4.50 for a Pepsi, and, the ultimate indulgence, $30 for an official World Indoor Lacrosse Championship t-shirt.  Seeing that this event is only held every four years and is all over the world, I figured I probably wouldn’t be attending another and ought to get some swag.  Weekend total:  $161.00.  Worth it?  Yeh, I think so.  Yeh.  Definitely.--Greg Ellstrom

Decal or Not Decal? How Much Info is Too Much?

    I saw a lady on the Channel 9 News toward the end of last week. She was being interviewed by one of the very sweet yet serious young female reporters of which the channel seems to have an unlimited supply. The contention of the lady that was being interviewed is that it is dangerous to have those little rows of stick figure family decals on the windows of your car. She said they give strangers too much information. She also warned against the posting of decals of soccer balls or football helmets or ballet shoes. Again, contending that this gave strangers too much info. about a family. So, I thought about it and thought about it some more. Probably for about 20 seconds. And decided that as well-meaning as I'm sure that woman is, her contention is ludicrous.
      
     There are so many things to be frightened of in this world. So many ways to reveal more about ourselves than we might want to, ie. FACEBOOK. I don't think there is any danger in telling the world you have three kids and a dog. There is no danger in revealing that Billy likes football and Susie loves ballet. . . or vice versa. This is good stuff. This is stuff we want to share with the world. Advertising these facts on car windows doesn't make the world anymore dangerous for our kids than it already is. If we stop sharing this information with decals is our next step to never take all our kids out to dinner at the same time for fear a stranger will see that we actually have 2 boys and 2 girls. Shall we refuse to allow our kids to wear shirts that advertise the things they "heart" to do for fear of revealing their love of bowling or madrigal singing.
    
     Maybe we should require anyone posting family decals to also have a bumper sticker that declares, "I Love Dogs and I have a snarling, drooling, possibly rabid Rottweiler/Pit Bull Mix at home just waiting to rip off your arm if you mess with any of my family symbolized by the stick figures above." The gun lobby might suggest a bumper sticker that reads, "Come Around My House and Mess With My Soccer Player or Middle School Honor Student and You'll Get a Load of Buck Shot in Your Scrawny Butt!" I hope we don't have to do that, though.
     
     Be proud of your kids. Be happy with your family. Tell the world about it if you wish through decals and bumper stickers and such. But remember. If you have a lease car and you turn it in without scraping the decal off your window, the dealership will send you a bill for $20. Those stickers are more information than they want.

When An Apology is Just Too Much!!

  Warning:  This post contains the word "urinal."  If you are troubled by this word, do not continue reading!  Those who watch NCIS with some regularity will know that one of Jethro Gibbs' rules is, "Never say you are sorry.  It shows weakness."  I never really bought into that rule.  It seems to me if you run over your neighbor's cat or mailbox, you ought to apologize.  I do worry about over apologizing, though.  More than once, I've caught myself apologizing for just standing someplace.  A person walks up and says "excuse me," and as I step aside I say, "I'm sorry."  This is an apology for being there first.  I really shouldn't apologize for that.  
     There are other situations where one can apologize when one doesn't need to. I encountered one this morning at Panera in Fayetteville.  The Panera mens' room features the height of modesty.  The single urinal is in its own stall.  This morning I went to the restroom and found that the door to the urinal was closed.  I leaned against the wall and waited.  A moment later a man walked out, saw me, and said, "I'm sorry."  He took a step past me, nodding his head, and then said, "I'm sorry," again.  I was moderately alarmed.  What was this man sorry about?  Did something horrible await me at the urinal?
     Let me conclude by saying that nothing horrible awaited.  The man, who I'm sure is a great guy, has just taken to apologizing too much.  He was apologizing for existing at that point at that time.  He is a victim of over apologetic syndrome--OAS.  Hypothetical commercial:  "Hi!  I'm Steve, S-T-E-V-E, and I have O-A-S!"  Sorry, by the way, to anyone actually named Steve.  Not!

Chapter One in The Ellstrom Files: Stranger than Fiction?

     I need to precede this tale with an explanation.  I possess an extreme honesty gene.  I feel that, if undercharged at a checkout, I must point out the error to the cashier. Even if it's only a dime.  I consciously do this.  And other things like it.  My conscience requires it.  But what happened last week would suggest that somehow that gene has taken residence in my subconscious, and makes sure that I remain honest, even if I unaware of my crime.  We went to Lowe's in Oneida and purchased several things.  One was a piece of plastic lattice.  The sign next to it read "$3.97," and I said to myself, "good deal," and grabbed one.  We picked up a couple other small items and the last thing I took from the shelf was a plastic container of grass seed priced at $15.47, I think. We went to the counter, talked with the genial young man who checked us out, and paid $27 and some cents on my credit card.  This seemed logical as I had a purchased the lattice, the seed and a couple other little items.  Linda and I went to the parking lot and struggled a bit with loading the lattice.  In doing so, I left the grass seed sitting in the parking lot as we drove away.  Once home, I realized it and called Lowe's.  The young woman who answered, who I later discovered was a past student from Chittenango, said they had it and would hold it for us.

      Two days later I went to pick it up, and here is where the story becomes bizarre.  As I walked in the door, I was greeted by the 'nango grad, who smiled and said, "You know you didn't pay for that grass seed."  I said, "yes I did.  On my credit card."  "You only thought you did," she assured me and showed me a copy of my credit card slip.  No mention of grass seed.  But there was a piece of lattice priced at $15.97.  Damn, I thought that price had been awful good.

     Then she explained how she came to know about this strange happening.  When they first found the seed in the parking lot, they scanned it to see if they could find out who left it behind.  The scan revealed that it had never been purchased.  Weird!  Had someone stole it only to leave it in the parking lot?  Then my call came, and she, knowing my name, decided to figure out this mystery.  They videotape all the sales at the register.  She checked the tape, and sure enough, the genial clerk who scanned our purchases, somehow managed to totally miss the seed.
     So, I laughed, shook my head, and paid for the seed.  Now, if I hadn't left it sitting there, I would have taken it home and used it and never imagined that it was pilfered loot.  Coincidence? Or some subconscious pilfer-preventing-power I have developed over years of not stealing stuff?  You decide for yourself in this case of life being stranger than fiction!  Da-da-da-DA!!

Why I Couldn't Work at a Holiday Inn

Crouse, Lumpjaw, Moose, and Gruffy Guard the Pillows!

I just changed the bed.  Changed the sheets, redid the blanket and spread, put on the fresh pillow cases, and such rot.  I despise this job, and usually Linda and I do it together.  But today, she was off walking the treadmill at the physical therapy center, so I decided I would do the deed alone.  I make the bed virtually everyday.  We have a longtime rule in our house.  Whoever gets out of bed last, makes the bed, and seeing that on most days, Linda gets up first, and I follow a few minutes later, I usually make the bed.  Actually, it's fair to say it is always my task, because when Linda does get up after I do, she has a tendency to forget her duty.  (Purposely, I don't know?)  She just leaves the bed unmade and heads downstair, there to forget it forever!  Because, over the years I have become rather OCD about having the made bed in our bedroom, I end up making it even if I got up first.  Now don't think that my compulsion to make our bed means I like doing it.  I can think of few jobs I despise more than making a bed.  I hate how you have to walk from one side of the bed to the other, then back again, straightening and tightening and fluffing.  I cheat a lot.  Sometimes I leave the sheet 18 inches down one bed side and 2 inches down the other so it can't even be tucked in, rather than running and pulling and tucking.  If I were forced to work in housekeeping at a major motel chain, I would run screaming from the place by my third room.  I find the thought of such employment frightening.  Truly!

Good Cop/Bad Cop. . .I mean Scout!

A couple of weeks ago, we we were heading to Webster for my dad's 91st birthday, and we stopped at a Byrne Dairy in Baldwinsville for gas.  In front of the store was a Cub Scout selling popcorn.  He asked me if I would like to buy some, and I explained that I bought from the scouts in Chittenango.  This is true.  And that popcorn ain't cheap!  Back in the car, I remembered my own time in scouting as I drove toward the town of my youth.

The term "Good Scout" is part of our language.  I was not a good scout.  I was a rather bad scout.  Like in the song "Leader of the Pack," I think I was "good bad, but not evil."  To begin with, I never wanted to be a Cub Scout, but I did want one of the cool blue Cub Scout shirts with the patches and a cool yellow scarf because they looked like cavalry uniforms that the soldiers wore in "Rin Tin Tin," one of my favorite TV shows.  I was somewhat disappointed when I found out that my mom didn't think wearing the shirt to play in was a good idea, and that when I did wear it, I had to attend meetings .

My first Den Mother was Mrs. Tracy.  The Tracy's lived on Adams Road.  They had 2 kids, Albert, who was my age, and his younger sister, whose name I have surely forgotten.  (I remember her name as being Tracy, and I'm sure she wasn't named "Tracy Tracy.")  I do remember that she was a great tomboy and could swing on the vines down in the Big Woods better than any boy.  Mr. Tracy helped us with our Cub Scout project.  That year we built shoe shine boxes, which we could carry by a handle, and which contained polish and rags and brushes and such.  I'm sure mine was awful.  I could never do those wood shop projects with any degree of success, because I really didn't care what they came out looking like.  I wonder if the shine box project idea had been in the scout manual since the Great Depression when it had been a kind of occupational training.  The great thing about that year was that the Tracy's dog had puppies, and I got to take the last one home with me. We named her Mittens, and she was the greatest dog a kid could have.

In that first year of Cub Scouting, I was a Wolf.  A Wolf was a first year, a Bear was a second year, and a Lion was a third year, I think.  I understood the Wolf and the Bear, in that they were the kind of creatures we might meet on a scout camping trip, but I doubted our Cub Pack would go on safari.  I remember little of the Bear or Lion years, which shows just how not immersed I was in scouting.  There is the inkling of a memory about building an awful birdhouse, but I couldn't tell you a den mother, or list my fellow Bear/Lions, or anything else about those cub scout years when I was 9 and 10.  I do remember being a "Webelos," though, which was what you got to be at the end of cub scouting.  It came with a neat bent arrow patch that looked great on my cub scout/cavalry shirt.  I also remember Akila coming to a Webelos meeting.  Akila was the Indian spirit of good scouting (the term Native American had not been uttered then) dressed in full headdress and regalia.  We thought he was really cool, although, he was actually just Ron Mix's dad.

For a reason I can't begin to fathom, I decided to tthen become a Boy Scout.  I don't know why.  I had been a poor Cub and was thrilled that was over.  I figure it was probably that old demon "peer pressure," that made me join up.   I remember friends hanging the carrot of "going camping" in front of my nose.  Truth be told, I didn't want to go camping.  I liked sleeping in my own bed, in my own house, with my own family, not in a tent full of kids who probably couldn't protect me if a Wolf, Bear, or, god forbid, a Lion attacked.  Our first mini-camping adventure came shortly after I took my vow of Scouthood.  We marched into Webster Park, the end goal being to stop somewhere, build a fire, cook our food on it, and go home.  I brought a sandwich.  By far, my favorite activity that day was going home.  I should have quit right then, but I didn't.  I went to some meetings and reached the point where I was ready to be tested to become either a "Tenderfoot" or a "First Class," whichever the first thing you test for is.  Our meetings were in our church, and a scout of rank took us into the kitchen and quizzed us at length on the scout lore we had learned.  One thing I remember was that we had to draw the scout pin from memory.  When we were finished, we were deemed First Class--until, the head Scout, an older kid, came in.  Our tester told him we had succeeded.  He sneered and said no we had not.  We could not advance until he tested us!  His tone suggested just how worthless he felt we were, and the scout who tested didn't say a word in his or our defense.  Baloney, I grumbled to myself.  I'm not doing this again.  That was it!  I never went back.  Never even bought one of those khaki shirts with the red scarves!  They didn't wear khaki in the cavalry, anyway.

I am completely aware that scouting has been wonderful for many people.  Just look at the Eagle Scouts who became POTUSes.  (There are several, I believe.)  It just wasn't for me.  I tried scouting, and it found me lacking. . .and I found it the same way.  As to the two scouts who tested that night long ago, do I hold any bad feeling?  Do I even remember their names?  Oh, yes, I do. . .I absolutely do!