It's About More Than Just the Football

Fall has always been my favorite time of year. I enjoy the cooling down of the temperatures along with the warm Indian Summer days, and this year we have had a surplus of those. We were on the golf course three times last week and here it is the middle of November. There is no more beautiful season than when the changing colors of the deciduous trees appears in stark contrast to the green of the evergreen trees and the leaves on the ground crunch under your feet.

Last Saturday was the last Illini home game. Our season tickets were a real treat again this year. Our team did better than expected but it is about so much more that just the football. The tailgate parties with the family and friends added the best season ever. It is the time of the year when we connect with the Illini loving Pattersons and occasionally old friends. Recently in a sermon at church, the minister used sports and especially football as an example of something that brings people together. He was so right.

This year we were delighted to have our friends Grace and Dick join us for a game which doubled our pleasure. Grace and I have been friends for 40 plus years. We met at a time before Don and Dick came into our lives and  we dreamed of being cruise directors on a European bound ocean liner. Does anyone remember "O Susanna"? (not the song but the television show). Maybe it was called "The Gale Storm Show". At any rate it was about cruising long before the "Love Boat" arrived on the scene. Grace and I splurged our senior year on a trip to California ( does anyone remember student stand-by half priced air fare?) Right after that we became engaged about the same time, got married a month apart from each other, and started having babies about the same time with the same obstetrician. After a few more years our lives took  diverse paths when she moved to St. Louis. Over the years raising families left very little time in our separate lives for each other, but we never lost touch. Now that our families are on their own and we are concentrating on grandchildren we are able to take up where we left off with one of the world's great friendships. It is like the years never passed. I am so happy to have her back in my life again.