Football Time in Tennessee

The entire 500Jerk family ventured out to the UT-Montana football game this past Labor Day weekend, the first game of the season.   It was B-L-A-Z-I-N-G hot here in East Tennessee, and the heat combined with the sea of enthusiastically bright Volunteer orange made it an altogether searing experience, retinal and otherwise.  The Spouse--a Vol enthusiast of the highest order--likes to get to Neyland Stadium several hours early, for all the pre-game festivities.  There's a band and maybe some other stuff?  I don't know, because mostly we hid in the shade of university buildings, trying to avoid heat stroke.

The Volunteer band did put on a fine pre-game performance right near our shady spot.  Wearing a bulky, dark band uniform in 96 degree heat must be a special kind of misery.  I hope they pack their pants with ice.  Speaking of which, has anyone invented undergarments that can be frozen?  I wish I'd had some.



Thanks to a friend and the Spouse's bartering abilities, our seats were pretty great.  Seat backs make all the difference.

About the time we got settled in, the skies opened up, and it began to pour.  Lightning caused all 100,000 Vol fans simultaneously to move for cover.  This is no way dampened anyone's enthusiasm. 
  

The storm and all the moving around caused a 90 minute game delay, but at least it cooled down.  We re-settled in our seats and began admiring Derek Dooley's bright orange pants from afar. 

More than four hours after we left home, the game finally got started.  I'm pretty indifferent to football, so mostly I just watched the guy with antennaed headphones sitting to my right pump his fist and sing Rocky Top over and over.  "GOOD OLE ROCKY TOP!" he would bellow, apparently deafened by his headphones.  No one except me took notice of how weird this was.

Although we left at halftime, the Spouse felt that I earned an "A" for good football behavior.  ACED IT, BOOYA! 

Stay tuned to see if he can do as well in an art gallery.