It was a tough sell.
“Honey, would you like to go to Edmonton at the end of the November?”
My lovely girlfriend is a lot smarter than I. She quickly realized something was up. Just a minor detour in our schedule — maybe about five hours out of Saturday to watch the Foothills Falcons play the St. Joe’s Celtic for the high school provincial football title.
“Oh, and sweetcakes, you’ll be by yourself because I will be on the sidelines taking approximately 2,132 photos, so I can get two that are actually in focus,” I said lovingly. “Dress warm dear, it can get cold in Edmonton.”
Not exactly a Hallmark moment in my life, but this was work gosh darnit.
She said no, thinking I was absolutely nuts. Apparently, the fact that I barely went to high school let alone a high school football game in my not-working-to-his-full-potential Beaverbrook High days back in the 1970s is some sort of indication I’ve had a change in attitude.
On Friday, I headed to Edmonton while My Reason For Living stayed home and helped build a house for Habitat for Humanity. (I’m sure there is a special place in hell for boyfriend’s who leave town for football while his girl does charity work.)
I’ll get over it.
The trip got off to a good start and although I was too late to see the Falcons boys and girls volleyball game on Friday, I could do that Saturday.
My game plan was to check-in and then gamble on trying to get a free meal. I faked going to a hamburger joint, bootlegged to my right about two blocks, where I successfully scored a meal from the football team the night before the big game.
It was there that I gave Falcon coach Darren Olson some advice.
“Coach, you’re too conservative,” I told him. “If you ever have a 2 and 20, snap the ball over Trey Kellogg’s head. He can pick up the ball, then toss it about 62 yards to Brendan Lowry, who will just be making up his own pattern out there because it appears everything has gone nuttier than a Monty Python skit.
“This one never fails.”
A good educator is always learning. Olson, with the help of Kellogg, Lowry and Co. pulled it off to a T.
It was nice to see the Falcons win their fifth title — the players, coaches, and staff put in long hours. But, football is over and basketball starts this week and the Falcons and HTA Knights look good. Maybe they can get to provincials. Hmmmm… “Honey, do you want to go to Fort McMurray in March for a holiday?”
