Oh, my aching feet

It's after midnight already but I wanted to go ahead and post about the football game. Gaffney 16 Byrnes 13. Good game to watch - worth every penny of the $6 ticket. But let me tell you about the atmosphere. Gaffney football is about as bigtime redneck as it gets. The crowd was almost unreal. I'd say 15,000 easy. I heard they pre-sold 9000 tickets and the gate tonight was over 13,500, plus the teams, bands, coaches, teachers, media, police, etc. It was PACKED. Wall to wall people. Standing room only. The stadium is a 3/4 bowl shape. The other 1/4 is VERY small visitor stands. It was 5 or 6 deep all around the fence. You couldn't have squeezed another butt in the stands anywhere. We stood on the hill, yes the WHOLE game, at a fairly steep slope. That's why my feet are killing me. First half it was body to body and fairly warmish. I was properly dressed and probably would have stayed warm if I could have moved around or sat down occasionally. But my feet went to sleep and got cold. The home side is HUGE, kind of like Pendleton, but with seats in the curve of the bowl. The team enters through a tunnel under the end of the home stands. The ref wore a mike so we could hear him call the penalties. Xavier Dye was a man among boys out there. Will Korn threw an interception right in front of me; not one of his best nights. Gaffney ran the second half kickoff back for a TD, straight down the sideline towards me. The difference in perspective from the endzone was disconcerting, but most of the action was near our end, thankfully. We did manage to stand in front of probably the only 3 German guys in the whole place. BMW-ers. I spoke to them, but we didn't strike up a conversation. They just asked me how many people. I wish we had taken our T and D and fence; we would definitely have made the news. No one else had one. No halftime show; nothing. Just more time to stand.

Ah, football. There are things I can enjoy about the game without being a fan of the teams playing.

Also, biggest step count day for me in a while - 9400. Short walk this morning before work, short walk this afternoon after work with the neighbor, and then the hike back to the car at the game. The FREE parking lot we picked in Gaffney actually had a "short bus" shuttle to the stadium. Nice.