As I was reading Father Bob's column for this issue of the Gazette, I was transported back to the football field of my own alma mater, the Minneota High School ...
It is also the fall of 1961 and I am also a freshman, wearing butt ugly black and white saddle shoes and trying to keep warm on a Friday night at a Minneota Vikings football game.  I'm not sure who we are playing tonight, but we play teams from Tyler, Russel, Ruthton, Lake Benton, Ivanhoe, and other foreign territories -- not all at once, of course.  I'm not sure where any of those towns are located.  I didn't find Minneota until I was about seven years old when my Grandma and Grandpa Opdahl moved there from the farm, and now I'm only 13.
It's very cold at the game and high school girls don't wear hats and scarves and long underwear.  I have no idea about the game of football, and I can't see the field because I'm shorter than everybody else -- especially all the big parents -- and there's no room on the green bleachers except for the band members and their big instruments.
I don't tell my new girlfriends that I don't know anything about football, but I sorta like the rhyming cheers and the clapping helps keep my mittened hands warm.
First and ten, let's do it again!
First and ten, let's do it again!
I wouldn't know a first and ten from a five and dime, and I can't figure out why we have to do it so often if you don't get points for it.  When I do ask the occasional question, I learn nothing from the answer.  I love my new Algebra and English classes, but football is a great mystery that I never encountered at the St. Eloi Catholic School in nearby Ghent.
S-U-C-C-E-S-S --
That's the way you spell success!
S-U-C-C-E-S-S --
That's the way you spell success!
It seems like every cheer goes at least twice a time.  Sometimes they go on too long and fade away into the night like my warm breath in the cold air.
Two bits, four bits,
six bits, a dollar,
All for the Vikings,
stand up and holler!
I know as much about bits as I do about first and tens, and I'm thinking that a dollar has a hundreds bits, but it rhymes with holler and rhyming is very important at football games, obviously.
Two, four, six, eight,
Who do we appreciate!
Two, four, six, eight,
Who do we appreciate!
Of course we appreciate the Minneota Vikings, especially because they have to play football on a cold hard ground when it's blowing and snowing.  Personally, I appreciate our team much more when the game is over.
I'm tired of standing for so long and freezing for so long and how much hot chocolate can I drink anyway?  There are no bathrooms around here, and the thought of it simply makes me colder.  I can't walk to my grandma's house because I'm not sure how many blocks to walk in each direction from the football field.  And it's dark out and easier to get lost.
... Now it's the fall of 1964 and I am a senior at another Minneota High School football game.  Allan is one of the eight starters, and it's Homecoming.  I am one -of the four Homecoming attendants and I am very cold in my long blue satin dress and heels.  The bonfire feels good, and so do my long white gloves.
First and ten, let's do it again.
First and ten, let's do it again.
I still don't know a first and ten from a five and dime, and I don't even care.  There's a dance after the game and I love to dance.  It's worth waiting for.
Two bits, four bits,
six bits, a dollar,
All for the Vikings,
stand up and holler.
I still don't know about these bits and pieces, but I have come to know more about the value of a dollar.  In fact, I learned this past summer that I could work eight hours as a carhop at the Minneota Drive-In and come home with $5.20.  I also learned that I could corn detassel at Redwood Falls for one week, ten hours a day, and get a check for $100.
The Homecoming game is over, and Allan asks me to dance and then to take me home.  He is tall and thin, muscular actually, and handsome and has thick curly hair.  That next summer of 1965, after graduation, he asks me to marry him.  I say, "Yes."  Four years later he asks again.  My answer is the same ...
Oofda, it's been a good ride, and I'm happy to return to 2002 to my little office here at home in Victoria, Minnesota, where I can watch the Minnesota Vikings in peace and warmth as well as with some understanding of the game.  Yes, I've come to know about first and tens ... and quarters, too.  There are four of them in a dollar and in a football game.
I would never watch a Vikings football game alone, but on a Sunday afternoon when Allan is home -- rather than duck hunting -- I'll watch the game with him and fall asleep many times before the two-minute warning.  When the kids come home on Sunday, they join us downstairs under the quilts ... by the fire ... on a cold winter's day for a Vikings game.
For everything there is a season.
--Sue