Here. We. Go.
I had been looking forward to this trip for several reasons, most notably because I have an awfully large soft spot in my heart for the Windy City and it had been far too long since I had been there -- nearly since I graduated from Northwestern, in fact. To boot, I'd be seeing several good friends in a massive defacto reunion, and the chance to see my college football team play in one of the most legendary venues in American sports only added to the excitement.
The night before jumping my 9 a.m. flight to Chicago, however, I was stuck at work past 1 a.m., which meant I'd be getting very little sleep before booking it to the midwest. This was mitigated by the fact that part of my late stay at the office was the result of some very exciting and potentially life-altering career news. I found 18 hours later that a few of my friends wanted to congratulate me by bringing some balloons by the office, which they then realized would go for naught as I was in the Norris Student Center Bookstore in Evanston, IL at the time. Either way, it was clear by the time I arrived at Laguardia that I was going to be extremely tired and in need of a nap on the plane.
So it's just my luck that I was sitting in front of a loud five-year-old who had a delightful habit of kicking the back of my chair.
The woman next to me seemed far less amused by the absurdity of the situation, declaring to me that "children shouldn't be allowed on shuttles". But I think she was a bit hard-nosed about it. After landing I had a bounce in my step, and a bit of an extreme rush to make my noon o'clock lunch plans at the Giordano's at 135 E Lake Street with the excellent Vawn and Dov. And lucky me, after sitting down on the blue line to downtown I found that the excitable five-year-old and his grandmother were on my train, too, and that they plopped down next to me. For a while I handled the conversation with decent aplomb, talking about transformers and Spider-Man. I did get a bit of a scare when I realized this five-year-old boy was born in 2005, when I was halfway through college, but otherwise it all went amicably until this uncomfortable exchange.
"So what were you doing in New York?"
"I was visiting my mom. I live in Chicago with my dad, but they split up because they had a fight."
"......Oh?"
"Yeah, my dad pushed my mom into a refrigerator, but now they want to be friends again."
This was the moment when his grandmother pulled him over and the conversation ended.
After sufficiently snooping around town, I met up with Rachel and went with her to a shabbat dinner at a friend's house, which, I admit, was more religious than I expected, but I good time had by all. I enjoy the periodic resumptions of Jewish observance that I'm generally oblivious to. Also the food was tremendous. After this: the L back downtown, beers and TV, sleep and then waking early for the big event.
I scarfed down the two leftover slices of pizza I had brought with me for lunch not knowing no food would be allowed in the Gameday pit, and then made my way in to meet up with Alan, who had the unfortunate luck of living next to me during the 2004-05 academic year. Poor sap. After watching a series of ridiculous signs, singing Take Me Out to the Ballgame with Ernie Banks and watching Mike Ditka make guest celebrity picks, we met up with Nomaan, Sean and the rest of my cadre, which involved finally getting my hands on my totally awesome looking tickets, watching the players enter the stadium through the alumni tent, and then heading to the young alumni tailgate, which involved an impressive amount of alcohol.
Game time.
Though I wasn't sober, I could surmise these things: the atmosphere was fucking awesome. The whole crowd, whether in Purple or orange, was absolutely electric. There is something about seeing a college football game in chilly weather that brings out excitement regardless of venue, but doing so in what was such a special and history building created an extra sense of novelty and grandeur not found at your typical Northwestern game. The stadium was fitted with all the trimmings, with Northwestern's usual field painted down, banners of Northwestern football greats hanging along the concourses, Big Ten scores on the famous Wrigley scoreboard, purple and white Northwestern flags dotting the top of the stadium and the foul poles and even some very clever billboards. Though I was somewhat dismayed that Northwestern chose to come out in alternate black jerseys after I had bought a brand new purple one for the occasion.
Eventually, I proved our worth as real sports fans to him, but the problem with convincing an old man that you know the sports of his time is that he proceeds to try to talk to you about them, and what it was like back in those days, for the rest of the game, which wasn't exactly what I was aiming for. Nomaan was less pleasant to him, but that related to an understandable and deeply-seated distaste for the arrogance of some Illini fans. As the game would wind down, the old man wished me the best and then confided that, "I actually wanted to go to Northwestern."
Zing.
That's what college sports are all about.
Of course, following a disappointing defeat in which Illinois wracked up an absurd 500 yards on the ground alone, the details of the game itself are probably better left undiscussed, but the atmosphere of the game itself was amazing. Once it ended, however, I was quickly reminded of the worst part of games at Wrigley: the outlandish logjam at the Addison L stop. Sean and I decided to avoid this by heading off to Belmont instead, where we head downtown and I grabbed some dinner before heading out for a night of drinking with Rachel and my friend Amit, another Chicagoan I hadn't seen in years.
Some people just don't have a sense of humor. Either way, the flight took off and I was on my way home. I left with a few drawn conclusions. The Wrigley experiment was excellent, and should probably be a regular thing for the Cats. Few things are better than a long fall day comprised of friends, beer and college football. And finally, I need to come back to Chicago more often.
That last one is hard to argue.
