'Tis the Season of Compromise

    The season officially opened on Thursday evening. For all of you neophytes, I am talking about the College Football Season. I don't know about where you live, but it has become a cult of sorts in my neck of the woods. This in no small part is due to the fact that I have lived the past thirty years in a largely male dominated household. One very athletic husband. Three very athletic sons. One very athletic daughter. One about-as-far-as-you-can-get-from-an athlete mother. No one told me that my fall schedule would revolve around football games. My husband played baseball in college so I can understand his obsession with baseball, baseball parks, and of course, the World Series. It is, after all, America's pastime. But football? I should have known.

    In our early married lives we could have easily qualified for food stamps. I was finishing school and The Husband was earning minimum wage in a family company. We barely had two nickels to rub together. We owned one car and we kept it parked most of the time. He took the bus to work (because we could not afford the parking downtown), and I walked to the neighborhood grocery store.  I brought my groceries home in one of those little metal carts you see the elderly toting around. I was so not cool. I guess we were energy efficient even then; our carbon footprint was practically minuscule. We spent virtually no money because we didn't have any to spend. But we somehow managed to have football season tickets every year to the Vanderbilt football games. Even then we had our priorities straight.

We sent two of our sons to the school that won the National Championship last year, so of course
The Husband and one of the sons just had to go to the game...

     Things haven't changed much. The husband still has season tickets, but I decided to bow out after watching my beloved Commodores make it to just three bowl games in forty years. On hot humid days when the temperature at kick-off is right at 100 degrees, I prefer my air-conditioning. Turns out The Husband does, too. So here we sit on the inaugural College Game Day of the 2011-2012 season. We watched last year's National Championship Team, Auburn, pull out a last minute win to keep from totally embarrassing themselves. We are now flipping channels between the LSU vs Oregon game and our Commodores who actually might win their opening game. Life is good. I have adjusted to the fact that fall in my household is a season of compromise. We go to movies on Sunday afternoons instead of Saturday nights. We hang out on Saturday night with other couples who like to watch football. The men stay glued to the set and the wives talk. It's the way things go in the South. But The Husband knows that this wife is making these sacrifices with something specific in mind....it's called Ireland. And it's calling our name. The two of us will hopefully be heading there sometime after football season is over. The Husband has learned the art of compromise. It makes for a good marriage and some very nice trips. So while we sit together in the family room, he is watching the games and I am conducting a little research on, you guessed it, the Emerald Isle.

All photos from Flicker.com