Weekend Recap
So, Saturday was the Auburn-Bama game here in Auburn. About 100,000 additional fans flock to the tiny college town on this weekend, over and above the number of people who actually have tickets to the game. They start arriving on the Wednesday before.
They come by car. They come by train. They come by RV, bus, and plane. (Theodore Geisel has nothing on me. Well, perhaps he has a little something.)
Anyway, by Saturday I had had it with the madness. Auburn is normally a town of about 50,000. It cannot comfortably accommodate the throngs of people who make the annual pilgrimage to this game. Now, don't get me wrong. I enjoy watching sports sometimes; although, I was raised on professional sports, so it's more difficult for me to get into the college sports thing. And, I can deal with crowds. I've many times been to Mardi Gras, Southern Decadence, Fantasy Fest, and now Halloween in the Castro. But, there's something about the combination of southern straight crowds all hopped-up for a college football game that makes it eventually unbearable. So, as soon as the game started, I took the opportunity to head out of town while the streets were vacant.
My original plan was to head to Atlanta, but I couldn't find anyone who was free to do anything. So, I ended up going to see a friend in Birmingham. We had a nice, playful evening (and morning) and I headed back to Auburn on Sunday afternoon. The traffic headed in the opposite direction on my way back was awful. I cannot understand why people would put themselves through that torture when they don't even have tickets to the game. Why would they drive all that way in bumper-to-bumper traffic, both into and out of the town, to sit outside the stadium and listen to the game on the radio? Oh well. I guess the tailgating gene is connected to the straight gene.
They come by car. They come by train. They come by RV, bus, and plane. (Theodore Geisel has nothing on me. Well, perhaps he has a little something.)
Anyway, by Saturday I had had it with the madness. Auburn is normally a town of about 50,000. It cannot comfortably accommodate the throngs of people who make the annual pilgrimage to this game. Now, don't get me wrong. I enjoy watching sports sometimes; although, I was raised on professional sports, so it's more difficult for me to get into the college sports thing. And, I can deal with crowds. I've many times been to Mardi Gras, Southern Decadence, Fantasy Fest, and now Halloween in the Castro. But, there's something about the combination of southern straight crowds all hopped-up for a college football game that makes it eventually unbearable. So, as soon as the game started, I took the opportunity to head out of town while the streets were vacant.
My original plan was to head to Atlanta, but I couldn't find anyone who was free to do anything. So, I ended up going to see a friend in Birmingham. We had a nice, playful evening (and morning) and I headed back to Auburn on Sunday afternoon. The traffic headed in the opposite direction on my way back was awful. I cannot understand why people would put themselves through that torture when they don't even have tickets to the game. Why would they drive all that way in bumper-to-bumper traffic, both into and out of the town, to sit outside the stadium and listen to the game on the radio? Oh well. I guess the tailgating gene is connected to the straight gene.