Memories

Today my wife and I are headed to Champaign for Homecoming. We don’t go to Champaign much for football since the Illini are so pitiful. They were not when we were in school there. Our senior year, they went to the Rose Bowl.  But, today we will put our Orange and Blue on and go to the game.

It’s fun to go back with my wife since we have a lot of memories there. This time we are tailgating with her sorority sisters-and that will be a lot of fun since they are a lot of fun.  I can’t wait to see them, and their husbands.  They all married really great guys.

Memorial Stadium in Champaign is a great place to see a game.  It only seats 60,000.  The stadium is the House that Grange built.  Red Grange, the Galloping Ghost, ran for six touchdowns against Michigan opening day.  Each column of the stadium has a name carved in it. The stadium is a memorial.  Each name is a person, a fellow Illini, who served and died in WW1.  No doubt Grange and his teammates knew the actual people that are those chiseled names.

Of course, I will keep one eye peeled to the activity in Baton Rouge, LA today.  Ole Miss rolls into town and let’s hope the Rebels can pull out a victory.

It’s a weird time to be the age I am.  I can remember so much that has happened in the past.  But, I feel just like I did when I was 20 with a lot of hope for the future.  I plan on living a very long life, so I am no where near ready to hang it up yet.  One of my very very close friends is lying in a bed fighting death.  Death is going to win out-and that takes my breath away.

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