Nothing funny about feldspar

Living as we do in a Small City with a Big University and a Big Stadium¹, we’ve grown accustomed to how are lives are shaped by the school calendar, even though we’re not associated with the university.

We cheer when the students leave in the spring (parking! room in the restaurants! we can get through stop signs in a reasonable amount of time without risking hitting an oblivious young adult!), we groan when they come back (is it that time already? who dressed these people?), yet all the time we are acutely aware that without Big University and without the constant influx of students, Small City would not be nearly as nice a place to live as it is.

Except on Football Saturday. I hate Football Saturday here in Small City. I subscribe to the Football Calendar not so I can go to the games, but so that I may know when it is impossible to do any of my out-of-the-house-on-Saturday chores. Game at noon? Don’t go anywhere near Big Stadium from about 10:30 to about 5pm. You might be able to drive past while the game is in progress, it depends on the game. An entire sector of the city is practically off-limits.² If you’re driving around when the game lets out, you are shunted into places you didn’t really want to go, like onto the freeway because you’re not allowed to turn onto certain streets.

Would I feel differently if we lived on the opposite side of Small City, instead of relatively close to Big Stadium (close enough you could walk there from our house without much effort, far enough we can’t charge for parking)? I don’t know. Everything in this city is influenced by Big University, like tides are influenced by the moon. We know when semesters start and end just by judging the level red plastic cups in the front yards of student houses. Exam periods are signified by the lack of table space in any number of coffee houses, bookstores, and cafés.

It’s something that one gets used to, I suppose, like the weather, but just as I complain about snow anytime after December knowing that I can’t do a damn thing about it except move, I’ll keep complaining about Football Saturday.

Go team.

1. for ten years now! How time flies.↩
2. I once lived in a Bigger City with a just as big Big University and Big Stadium (and even more rabid fans), and I knew to stay away from the stadium on game day, but with a bigger city, there are more places to “stay away from” to be found.↩