It is said that one out of every four engineers in this country, is a graduate of Penn State Engineering College. It is also said that before each and every one of those students sets foot on the hallowed grounds of any one of Penn State’s various campuses, they did not know one end of a football from the other! A kicker was a punch line; a quarterback was an obscure term for the most popular guy in their high school, and their arch rivals Ohio, was just the state next door.
“Penn State is playing Ohio tomorrow,” my wife Rachel declared when we sat down to dinner a few nights ago. I smiled as I chewed on my under cooked steak and then suddenly, I panicked.
“At Penn State?” I asked after gulping my glass of red wine.
“Yes,” she replied sounding excited and my heart began beating at a million miles a minute. “It’s white out, baby!” she shouted pushing back her chair noisily, causing our young son, Joshua, who was in his room with our black lab, Butch, making sure he didn’t swallow any of his small Lego pieces, to shudder.
Before I go any further, I have to explain myself. Rachel is a civil engineer. A very calm, quiet and methodical civil engineer. But all that goes out the window when Penn State are playing at home and it’s declared a ‘white out’ day. It’s on those days that our living room resembles Beaver Stadium. There’s a keg of beer bought specifically for this occasion, even though there are only the two of us and our young son isn’t of age yet. But, I have to admit I have seen our black lab take a sip when no one was looking. There are empty pretzel bags littering the floor, together with hamburger wrappers and soda cans. These are a part of the props, which after the game is over, are put back in a plastic bag and kept in the hall closet, ready to be used again.
Hours before the game and I mean many hours before the game, Rachel makes her way down the stairs dressed completely in white. “They can’t see you!” I told her once, “you’re in our living room. We don’t have a video camera focused on you.”
But it was useless. I was using logic which you would think a civil engineer would use, but on this day on the days, when Penn State plays at home, all logic is thrown out of the window. “It doesn’t matter!” she tells me every time she comes down dressed completely in white, including a white bow in her blonde hair. I have learnt yes, I have learnt not to say anything and to just sit on the couch and look happy, while our son Joshua sits on my lap or very close to me with his hands gripping my shirt knowing that something evil is going to happen. Yes, we sit there. And no, we don’t drink half a keg of beer. The beer distributor is always confused when Rachel returns the keg still nearly full. “Why you buy keg and not 6 pack?” he asks in his best Korean accent. “It would be cheaper.”
Yes, of course, it would be cheaper. If on any other day I suggested we buy a keg, Rachel would scream at me. “Are you flipping nuts?” she would ask, “what a waste of money!”
But not on the day when Penn State plays at home and it’s declared a ‘white out day,’ logic is out the window.
So, Rachel being a very clever girl, has begun to empty the keg before she takes it back believing that the distributor would smile thinking she had many friends over to watch the football match. One day, she actually filled Butch’s water bowl with Genesee Light and it was the most fun I’ve had in a long time. Butch was high. She was sloshed. She ran around the house until I finally opened the back door and tripped her up as she was making another round and she went flying out of the door and then, for the next hour or so, raced around the neighbourhood. I know that because we got numerous calls from neighbours letting us know that Butch was racing around the development.
“Yes, we know,” I replied, “she’s excited about the football game.”
Before Rachel went to Penn State, she couldn’t tell one end of the ball from the other. “It’s something in the water up there!” a friend told us when we realised that Rachel wasn’t the only person to celebrate white out day in this fashion. Her husband did the same. You would think that as time passed the thrill of wearing everything white and behaving like a lunatic would dimmish. But no, it doesn’t.
I just have to make sure our son doesn’t go to Penn State. Can you imagine having two people in white, screaming at the top of their lungs and berating the quarter back for making a bad throw. “He was wide open!” Rachel would scream. “Get another quarterback. This one’s blind. If I can see the open receiver and I’m here in my living room, then you can. You’re right there.”
I’m so glad when the day comes to an end. No, not the game, the day. That’s because Rachel needs to release all that tension and stress before she can go to bed, and she does that by laying on the floor and screaming at the TV, especially when Penn State loses and especially when it’s to Ohio State.
Yes, there’s something special about those two schools when they meet at Beaver Stadium. It’s a battle. It’s fight until death. No survivors. But then the next day when the sun comes up slowly in the east, afraid of what it might find, Rachel wakes up with a beautiful smile on her face and say’s in her most child like tone, “hello darling. Do you want me to get the coffee this morning or will you? I hear Joshua crying in his bed and I think Butch needs to be let out.”
It is then and only then, that I close my eyes, take a deep breath letting it slowly and know that for at least the next month or so life will return to normal. “No darling,” I reply, “I’ll get the coffee and take care of Joshua and let Butch out.” She smiles and closes her eyes. Soon she’s fast asleep. Thank goodness it’s Sunday.