My son's first Husker game
By Rich Watson
Making the 165 mile trip from Holdrege to Lincoln on a football Saturday is one of my favorite things to do. This was Nebraska’s first game of the season in 2001; the opponent was Texas Christian University. This day was extra special as my seven year old son was accompanying me full of excitement and anticipation of his first trip to Memorial Stadium. Leaving town I had the choice of driving our comfortable van or driving the much more economical 1992 Ford Festiva that had been totaled by hail several years earlier. Being the tight wad that I am, of course I chose the Festiva. After all the focus was on football, not on how we looked.
I was fortunate enough to have Club seats in the west balcony for the two of us, and had also gotten two tickets for my parents who live in Lincoln. I was also blessed to have a Directors Club parking pass near the stadium.
Most every Saturday morning, my parents visit Lincoln’s farmers market in the Haymarket area of downtown Lincoln. If you have not been to one of these, it is certainly the place to find just about any and all types of homegrown vegetables and baked goods. Clear on the south end of the Haymarket area was a large Salvation Army store. This was the landmark for meeting my parents to give them their tickets, giving them plenty of time to shop at the market and place the food in their car.
As I approached the parking lot in my beat up Ford Festiva, the entrance was divided into two lanes. Left lane general public parking, right lane reserved for parking passes only. We were approached twice by traffic control telling us we were in the wrong lane. Twice I flashed my parking pass, only to be met with a look of disbelief. Once we entered the lot, we were again met with a funny look when I gave them our permit. The parking attendant began to laugh out loud and called another worker on his walkie talkie. In a parking lot with at least 100 empty stalls, we were directed with laughter into a crowd of twenty to thirty people tailgating to a small three-quarter size parking stall in between two brand new black Lincoln Navigators. The group tailgating looked at my son and me in our tiny hail dented car with more disbelief. Of course my son did not see any problem with the entire picture; he was just so excited to get to the game.
Trying to curb my embarrassment upon getting out of the car, I shouted to the group staring at us, “Hey, make sure you don’t scratch my paint while we’re gone.” After what I thought was a decent attempt at humor, the group just starred at us. Quietly my son a and I opened up the hatchback of the car to dig out our headphones, tickets and other game gear, my son was growing impatient with me when I insisted on applying sunscreen. Once we began walking out of the parking lot, I had to go back to make sure I had locked the car. I had to walk back through the group, still feeling embarrassed for my choice of car for the trip; and thinking that the situation couldn’t get worse: that’s when my son YELLS OUT, “Hurry up Dad, we still have to get to the Salvation Army”. At that point, all I could do was laugh until I had tears in my eyes.
I will never forget that feeling, nor grow tired of telling this story. GO BIG RED.
