THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, September 29, 1994 TAG: 9409290455
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: MARC TIBBS
LENGTH: Medium: 65 lines
There's no question that I'm not as young as I used to be, but the way some teenagers do things today makes me long more and more for the good old days.
Take high school football.
When I was kid, going to a high school football game, especially the games between the crosstown rival Flyers and the Tigers, was like going to the Super Bowl.
Even before I got to high school, a pass to that game was a tough ticket. I haven't heard of a high school game where ticket scalpers loitered outside the stadium since those good old days.
As kids, my two brothers and I would make what seemed like a miles-long walk to Parson's Field, the stadium where the two teams played. We were wrapped tight in our pea coats and watch caps, and our blood seemed to run warmer as we got closer to the stadium and could hear the marching bands warming up.
Everyone in town made those games. People came dressed in their Sunday best, and, for weeks afterward, we talked, not only of the score, but of the tailored suit the principal wore, or how the Rev. so-and-so pulled up to the gate in his Cadillac Eldorado.
When we couldn't afford a ticket, or couldn't buy one, it wasn't unusual for us to join scores of others who ``hopped the fence'' behind the visiting bleachers, ducking low to avoid the police who worked security, then emerging between the planks of the stands like we'd been there all along. Some of the paying customers would even give us a hand up. Not because they advocated our delinquency, but because this was a game everyone deserved to see.
The smell of hot dogs and pretzels wafted through the air, and, for about two hours, we knew that we would be thoroughly entertained.
I'll never forget squeezing through the planks of those bleachers, and emerging to see the lush, green field with freshly chalked lines, and what seemed to me to be huge players standing on the sidelines. It was a far cry from the pro football games I had seen on our black-and-white television set.
I'd never known organized football to be such a brightly colored spectacle. We could hardly wait for halftime, when the spectacularly clad drum major would high-step his way onto the field in front of a band rocking to pulsating rhythms from the percussion section.
By the time the game was over and we walked out of the main gate, we all felt satiated at an evening well-spent. The final score didn't matter.
Boy, those were the days. There were a few fights, here and there, but nothing of the nature high school games have taken today.
Recently, a few Virginia high school principals have been contemplating bringing an end to night football games. Students have been found carrying guns. Metal detectors are being used to search fans coming through the turnstiles.
Fights are breaking out, and there seems to be more hitting in the stands than on the field.
I still consider myself a fairly young man. For me, 40 is coming closer and closer into focus, but I never thought changes in society would make me feel so old so soon.
It saddens me that yet another American institution is headed for decline; that I have yet another ``olden'' story to add to the tomes I tell my children about the way things used to be.
In 20 years will my kids look back and see these as the days. by CNB