Lifetime Memories
When I was a six years old, my grandmother's next door neighbor played football at Auburn. One Saturday when the team was playing a team they would beat handily he invited me to the game as his guest, and asked my parents if I wanted to go into the locker room after the game. Yep.
I still remember everything about that day vividly, too. The team throttled the Moccasins. I got to see and hear them sing the fight song after the win and chant "Beat Tennessee" to begin getting focused on the next week's game. They gave me helmet chin straps which we put in my mom's purse on the way out to keep them from getting stolen. I saw players get interviewed for newspapers and television. I shook hands with quarterbacks who told me to eat well so I could grow up and play for Auburn (I guess they didn't know that I'd be weighing a cool 135 upon my high school graduation). I met the legendary head coach, who they later named the stadium after. I didn't know it, but Santa was in the locker room, too, because I got an autographed game ball with every single player's autograph on it for Christmas that year.
It's 32 years later and it's a day of my childhood I don't imagine I'll ever forget.
My youngest daughter Shelby had a day like that yesterday.
Somehow, some tickets to the American Ballet Theatre landed in my wife's lap (naturally, after we'd purchased some pricey tickets for TONIGHT'S show, but who's complaining?) through a friend of hers. They were the best seats in the house. A parking pass in the best places in the lot. Some ritzy donor couldn't make it to the show and my daughter got to see what the newspaper called an "eclectic, energetic performance."
Not only were the seats primo, there was a benefit of admission to the "donor's lounge." During intermission, my wife & her friend as well as their ballet-loving daughters got to hob nob with the type of people who get their picture and stories told in the society section of the paper. My daughter got to try some smoked salmon thing and caviar. Whoever the folks were that got my wife in must've been impressive donors, because they threw that name around to get my daughter's ballet instructor and her friends back there, too. I'm sure it wasn't a big deal, I mean, crashing that kind of scene can't involve real troublemakers.
Anyway, the tickets also came with some post-show reception in which my daughter got to meet & greet the dancers and all that jazz. I don't get the full story because my daughter was reading the review in this morning's paper.
They didn't get home until 1AM. On a school night, to boot.
Well worth it, for a lifetime (and likely highly inspirational) memory, if you ask me. And since ballet doesn't require size and speed of college like college football, maybe a blonde-haired blue-eyed ballerina in my house can dream big. No matter what, it's a lifetime memory. And that's grand.
When I was a six years old, my grandmother's next door neighbor played football at Auburn. One Saturday when the team was playing a team they would beat handily he invited me to the game as his guest, and asked my parents if I wanted to go into the locker room after the game. Yep.
I still remember everything about that day vividly, too. The team throttled the Moccasins. I got to see and hear them sing the fight song after the win and chant "Beat Tennessee" to begin getting focused on the next week's game. They gave me helmet chin straps which we put in my mom's purse on the way out to keep them from getting stolen. I saw players get interviewed for newspapers and television. I shook hands with quarterbacks who told me to eat well so I could grow up and play for Auburn (I guess they didn't know that I'd be weighing a cool 135 upon my high school graduation). I met the legendary head coach, who they later named the stadium after. I didn't know it, but Santa was in the locker room, too, because I got an autographed game ball with every single player's autograph on it for Christmas that year.
It's 32 years later and it's a day of my childhood I don't imagine I'll ever forget.
My youngest daughter Shelby had a day like that yesterday.
Somehow, some tickets to the American Ballet Theatre landed in my wife's lap (naturally, after we'd purchased some pricey tickets for TONIGHT'S show, but who's complaining?) through a friend of hers. They were the best seats in the house. A parking pass in the best places in the lot. Some ritzy donor couldn't make it to the show and my daughter got to see what the newspaper called an "eclectic, energetic performance."
Not only were the seats primo, there was a benefit of admission to the "donor's lounge." During intermission, my wife & her friend as well as their ballet-loving daughters got to hob nob with the type of people who get their picture and stories told in the society section of the paper. My daughter got to try some smoked salmon thing and caviar. Whoever the folks were that got my wife in must've been impressive donors, because they threw that name around to get my daughter's ballet instructor and her friends back there, too. I'm sure it wasn't a big deal, I mean, crashing that kind of scene can't involve real troublemakers.
Anyway, the tickets also came with some post-show reception in which my daughter got to meet & greet the dancers and all that jazz. I don't get the full story because my daughter was reading the review in this morning's paper.
They didn't get home until 1AM. On a school night, to boot.
Well worth it, for a lifetime (and likely highly inspirational) memory, if you ask me. And since ballet doesn't require size and speed of college like college football, maybe a blonde-haired blue-eyed ballerina in my house can dream big. No matter what, it's a lifetime memory. And that's grand.
.jpg){kind=avatar}
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home