Another Great Family Outing
College football. Tailgating, crisp fall days, anticipation; armchair quarterbacking, excitement, the smell of leather and turf. For Husky fans like us, it’s all purple and gold, flying the colors, reveling in traditions, seeing old friends and uniting with family. Last Saturday found nine of us Morgan’s congregated in row two of the section we have populated for decades now. We take up nearly half the row.
My cousin Jeff has four tickets he rotates between his brother, Kerry, and his sister’s sons and husband, Doug. For my family, it’s usually all five of us, sometimes rotating in one or more of our son’s better halves.
For the last few years we’ve also taken to traveling to one away game each season. This year it was a trip across state through the beautiful Palouse for the Washington-Washington State rivalry in Pullman, WA. Sunny skies on a warm fall day made this a great three day getaway. Closed freeways and overloaded back roads revised the normally easy four hour drive into a 9-1/2 hour marathon. That wasn’t so great, but meeting up with friends Saturday morning in Spokane for the 75 minute drive south to Pullman made up for it. Seems there’s always something that makes these trips interesting.
Last year was the drive to Corvallis, OR to watch the Huskies narrowly defeat the Oregon State Beavers in a night-time deluge. It rained all through late afternoon tailgating and accelerated from there. No covered seats meant that by the end we looked like four drowned rats in search of a warm, dry bar.
Left-Making the best of it in the Corvallis downpour – winning helps; Right-Warming up in the bar post-game.
This annual trek all started when our youngest blurted out how cool it would be to watch the Huskies play Michigan in the Big House at Ann Arbor. We all jumped on the idea and it turned into an epic early September, three-day adventure. The Michigan fans were so nice, and we had such a blast it sealed the idea of doing a trip every year.
Left – Late night game at Husky Stadium; Right – First game of the year tailgating with my three sons.
Not sure yet where we’ll be next year – part of the fun is figuring it out. In the meantime, we’ll continue meeting our cousins at games, and using that as an excuse to plan other family get togethers. There’s a great tradition here that goes back decades to the days when my Uncle Dale and Jeff used to sponsor a big tailgate in the huge north Husky parking lot that included a Husky-themed camper, BBQs, tons of food and drink, dozens of friends and family, and my uncle’s famous Jello shots. He would make hundreds, enough to fill a 48 gallon cooler, and distribute them around the parking lot on his electric scooter.
Of course, we have other friends who tailgate. Some continue to party with their frat brothers and make a weekly production that includes pizza ovens, kegs, full-size converted buses and weekly food and party themes. Others have two full-service bars that are under cover, with games, food menus, the whole enchilada. This is full-scale celebration. I get exhausted just looking at the amount of work these people put in each Saturday.
It’s impressive, it’s tradition, it’s family. Any reason to celebrate that and have fun at a wholesome event is a good thing. So here’s to family, to traditions, to college football. While it isn’t what it used to be, may it forever be a way for people to have fun with each other and enjoy a sport whose popularity originated at high schools and colleges as a way to celebrate the human spirit. Go Dawgs!
