The day is fast approaching when I'll be doing my final packing then starting the long drive to Texas. Since being a worrywart keeps me going, my latest paranoia is whether my car will make it without adventure, mostly of the mechanical kind. Long drives and plane flights are two areas where my sense of adventure takes a holiday. The duller the better.
In the meantime I'm finally realizing there are many places and activities I've seen the last of. Yesterday I went to the Cal - UCLA game, and between cheering my Bears on, I kept getting flashbacks of the moments I've witnessed in Memorial Stadium since my first game back in 1974. The great names, Steve Bartkowski, Chuck Muncie, the very courageous and talented Joe Roth, Wesley Walker, Russell White, Marshawn Lynch, Desean Jackson, and giving credit where it's due, great players of Cal's opponents, like Marcus Allen and Warren Moon. Then there's bands, Cal's is usually ... well, at the risk of sounding disloyal, ok. USC's is wonderfully pretentious and incredibly dull, UCLA's is honestly quite good, and Stanford's is consistently awful and a major embarrassment.
And the games! Despite Cal's sad record of long stretches of mediocrity interrupted by teasing moments of glory, there were many memorable ones. I must admit I missed "The Play" because of being bedridden with the flu, though I did listen live to Joe Starkey's immortal broadcast. There were the sadly rare but immensely satisfying wins over USC, including the triple overtime thriller from 2003, and the comeback against Oregon from 30 points down in 1993.
I'm definitely going to miss the atmosphere, raw emotion, and excitement of going to Cal games. Fortunately I ordered a sports package with my TV service in Texas that carries Cal whenever they're televised. Otherwise on Saturday I'd be calling AT&T and whining, "What is this nonsense? I want to watch Cal and all I can get are these teams from Texas?"
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