Let's Preserve the America the Politicians Haven't Ruined

Amid all the madness swirling around us in our increasingly crazy political world these days, I wanted to share just a little bit of normalcy with you today. It’s a snapshot of the part of America the politicians haven’t ruined yet.

I have spent a fairly good portion of my life at football games. I got to thinking about that recently when my wife, Terri, and I attended an 8th grade football game. Actually, two games - the B team and the A team. In addition to being an outstanding athlete, our oldest granddaughter - an incredibly neat, smart young lady named Raegan - is a cheerleader, and we attend as many of these games as we can.

I first started going to middle- and high-school football games back in the early 1960s. My Dad was a referee, and he started taking me along with him when I was 7 or 8, around 1964 or so. I have so many great memories from those days, watching him call games in small stadiums in South Texas towns like George West, Cuero, Goliad, Kennedy, Gregory-Portland, Agua Dulce, our hometown of Beeville, and too many others to name.

I first participated in running the sideline chains one night in George West when I was probably 10. I remember the tense 24-mile ride back home after I’d messed things up at several points. But I got better at it, and eventually even officiated games for awhile after college before a knee problem convinced me to find better ways to spend my spare time on Thursday and Friday nights in the fall. I also did public address announcing in the ‘90s and early ‘00s for football, volleyball, and basketball games in the Arlington area.

My daughter, Jessica, was a cheerleader, too, and my son, Adam was a drummer in the band just like his old man. So, I’ve spent a ton of time enjoying middle school and high school football for more than 60 years now.

That’s all a long way around to saying that, what struck me at last night’s games was how little things have changed in all those years:

• The cute cheerleaders on the sidelines brightening things up with their routines and ever-present smiles.

• Parents and grandparents clapping and cheering on the girls and the players.

• Classmates cutting up and horsing around in and behind the stands.

• Other smiling classmates selling hotdogs and cokes and nachos with that plastic cheese and soggy chili in the concession stand.

• The growing young men doing their best to learn the game in real time out on the field.

• A handful of overwhelmed coaches doing their best to get their teams to perform and execute barely-organized plays.

• Another 10 year-old kid learning how to run the chains with a couple of grown men showing him the way, just like I did 60 years before.

• The public address announcer making the same calls I used to make over the loud speaker.

• Hundreds of smiling, laughing people from all races, religions, and backgrounds cheering together for a common cause.

All happening under lights provided by light standards dotted here and there with unreplaced burned-out bulbs.

Oh, some things are different for sure. There’s a jumbotron at the south end of the field in this stadium, for starters. We sure didn’t have those in 1964.

The field is covered with artificial turf rather than the weeds, spotty bermuda grass, and sticker burrs we used to play on in South Texas.

The smiling volunteers who used to take paper tickets as you entered the stadiums of the ‘70s now check your iPhone for the digital tickets you bought online. Stuff like that.

But the people haven’t changed. The faces are different, everyone seems heavier than they were half a century ago, but the smiles are the same. The laughter’s the same. The cheers are the same. The alma maters and fight songs are essentially the same, still variations on the same themes of love, loyalty, and a willingness to fight, fight, fight!

The fun is the same. The simple joy of this slice of American life hasn’t changed.

This is a piece of America the politicians and the media and the social meddlers haven’t managed to ruin and destroy, at least not yet. Let’s hope we can keep that from ever happening.

What a time to be alive. What a place to live.

God Bless America.

That is all.