The drive home was great. My favorite radio station was playing ...."Let's twist again....like we did last summer......." and after that....."I wish that they could all be Cal-i-forn-ia gir--ls...." We drove on thorough the darkness with the radio playing golden oldies. It was the perfect semi-ending to a great evening.

To begin we picked up a sack lunch in the parking lot at Tarleton Stadium for the benefit of Project Graduation sponsored by Texas Bank. We took our megaphone, courtesy of McCoy Building Supplies, and walked up the incline to our seats in the reserved section. (These seats were hard fought for and will be left to our children in the will.)

It was hot! Anticipating hot, we wore shorts and dark glasses. For some unexplained reason the powers that be at Tarleton have seen fit to built a tin (at least it sounds like tin when you pound on it), wall directly behind the seats of the season ticket holders. Why they did this is a great mystery. The fact that they did this makes climbing into and out of those seats on the back row, a lesson in running an obstacle course.

In the old days, we used to hang over the cement wall behind those choice seats and visit with everybody walking by. If you needed to jump up and take a child to the bathroom, why you just hoisted him up by the arms, walked across the back of the seats, and scaled the short wall to get to the walkway beyond. Nowadays folks have to walk across the backs of seats, negotiate the narrow cement ledge while holding onto the tin screen and a small child and thus make way to the freedom of the walkway.

I have seen parents hoist their children over the barrier, knock on the wall and then relay trays of nachos across the fence, actually crawl across the tin obstruction and risk life and a great fall all in the process.

Tonight we had no great falls but we did have several near misses.

Watching the Yellow Jackets do what they do best....WIN, we left happy and drove home in a sticky but a good mood.

Sticky?? If you've ever been anywhere with a small child and funneled cold drinks and candy to that little shaver.....well, that's why somebody invented Handy Wipes. Our three-year old enjoyed the game from the first cloud out of the smoke machine and his energy increased with the progress of the evening. He loved screaming, "Go Jackets" through the yellow megaphone. If the nice man that sat in the seat right in front of us, reads this, I am truly sorry about Seth leaning over and shouting right in your ear. I felt really bad when you jumped up and left like that, before we could even offer you some Skittles. They still tasted good, even after rolling around like they did when our little sweetheart spilled the whole package. We wiped them off with a page we tore out of the program and there was hardly any dirt at all.

And about that sucker stick that went sailing across three rows and stuck on top of the new white cap an excited fan was wearing. Mister if you would have stayed and just looked at our great-grandson's face, you could see that he wasn't laughing AT you. Why he was laughing WITH you.

Two Dublin Dr. Peppers later, it was time to go to the bathroom. Now here is where I really fall out with the brass up at Tarleton who told somebody to put up that wall behind our seats. Ordinarily we would have just climbed up in our seat, swung the kid over the ledge and followed after him. It only took about thirty seconds to get to the bathroom and we bothered nobody on our row. As it is now, we apologized to fifteen dedicated football fans and tried not to step on toes as we made our slow passage to the isle.

Somewhere during the third quarter, I realized that everything around us was sticky....the back of the seat....the yellow megaphones....the canvass bag I carried....the sole of my shoe.....by the time we packed up to leave, I needed a wet washcloth....all over.

The game was over so we walked down the slope, turned the curve and it was at that exact moment that Seth decided he had lived a lifetime and never climbed that hill. He set out up the grassy slope while we waited below. His three year old legs are short to match his body but he got there. In that exact same instant another boy about the same age decided that the one thing he had never done in his life was climb that grassy hill. So he set out and together the two little boys rolled in great delight down the hill to the waiting arms of folks who love them.

Yellow Jacket Football...... I recommend it as great fun for the entire family!