Monday, September 5, 2011

USC Football Amnesia

Football season started without me. I’m a USC alumna and for the past few years, I planned game watching parties for the USC Alumni Club in the North Bay Area. Each season, Mark and I would fly down to a game or two at the Coliseum in Los Angeles and, of course, attend the game when USC played Cal or Stanford. But this year, football season snuck up on me. The weather is in the high 80’s, there’s very little tradewind breeze blowing, there are no changing of the leaves to autumn colors….how am I supposed to know it’s football season?

Last Saturday, I had plans to meet a friend at 10:00. At 8:55 AM I was reading the morning news and drinking coffee. Mark turned on the TV to find the USC-Minnesota game. I had completely forgotten about the game. I checked in on Facebook and found post after post from USC friends. Many friends attached photos from the Coliseum, the tailgates, a photo of Traveler (the horse).

There was no planning for a game watching party here in our apartment. No wearing USC shirts and hats. No cardinal and gold pom-poms to be seen.

I watched the opening drive of the game, then left to meet my friend. When I reached home and checked my cell phone, there was a text from the gang at our North Bay game watching party, saying they missed us.

With tropical weather and geography outside our door, I forget about Mainland rituals and traditions. But USC is important to me. It’s a great school that does great things and I want to be with my Trojan Family during football season. It’s what binds us together. So, this Saturday I will be with the USC Alumni Club of Hawaii, watching the game at Jimmy Buffet’s in Waikiki. Join us. I’ll be the one in the USC shirt.

Fight On!

Update: Hawaii Five-0 has their Season 2 premiere on the beach in Waikiki this Saturday. I don't know the time yet. What do I do if they schedule it during the USC game? Such are the awesome choices when living on Oahu.