Author Archives: Kathleen Fox

Things That Go Bump in the Dark

Posted on November 5, 2010 by Kathleen Fox

I've written before about the hazards of hiking up our driveway on dark, cold mornings to get the newspaper. The worst of these is the emotionally real if physically imaginary (I hope!) mountain lions that lurk behind every shadowy tree and bush.

It's completely unreasonable as well as embarrassing for a mature adult, who can do public speaking in perfect comfort and is eight and a half times a grandmother, to be scared of the dark. Over the past couple of weeks I've been attempting to confront this fear.

It started one morning when I headed outside at 5:45. The front walk and the driveway were such a brilliant white that I thought it must have snowed. When I stepped out onto the porch, though, I realized the brightness came from the nearly full moon, backed up by a blaze of stars. The front yard was silver in the still predawn air, and the sky was breathtaking.

As I walked up to get the paper, delighting in the beauty of the morning, I kept hearing quotes in my head from Alfred Noyes ("The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor.") and Clement Moore ("The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow gave a luster of midday to objects below.") This kept my mind so busy it almost forgot about the imaginary mountain lions.

Ever since, I've been concentrating on the beauty of the early morning sky in an attempt to trick my brain into becoming more comfortable in the dark. It's been working, too—sort of.

At least until a couple mornings ago, when the moon had shrunk to a narrow fingernail clipping above the trees and the shadows were especially deep and black. I crept warily through the shadow of the my spouse's parked SUV and headed up the driveway, walking as quietly as one can on gravel.

I made it to the top of the hill, grabbed the paper out of the box, and started back down, doing just fine until I heard the noise. A throat-clearing or coughing sort of noise, just the kind of sound my brain imagines a mountain lion might make before it springs. Or (it occurred to me later) just the kind of sound a neighbor's garage door might make.

I walked faster. Quite a bit faster. A biased observer might have even said I broke into a trot—not so easy to do in one's bathrobe and slippers. Nervous but still under control, I crossed the last strip of driveway and reached the shadow of the SUV.

Where an ominous figure loomed. It was so silent and still that I nearly crashed into it before, with a heart-thumping jolt of adrenaline, I realized it was there.

My dear partner, not knowing I had already ventured into the darkness, had started out after the paper. He was standing near the car, wondering whether that creature he heard blundering about in the driveway was a mule deer or a mountain lion.

It's a good thing neither of us was armed. Shooting each other in our own driveway would have made for embarrassing headlines in the next morning's paper. Though no doubt the nearest lurking mountain lion would have appreciated it.

Categories: Wild Things | Tags: , , | 3 Comments

A Halloween Whooodunit

Posted on October 28, 2010 by Kathleen Fox

"The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea
In a beautiful pea green boat . . .
They dined on mince, and slices of quince,
Which they ate with a runcible spoon."

There seems to be a cat-lover in Newell, South Dakota, who isn't familiar with Edward Lear. Or maybe the place is simply fresh out of quince.

It seems that the town has had a problem with an over-abundance of feral cats. For small-town law enforcement, dealing with stray animals comes with the territory. This is not necessarily a trivial task in western South Dakota, where every now and then a wandering feline turns out to be a mountain lion. Still, complaints about stray cats probably aren't a top priority for the sheriff's office.

The priority may have moved a little higher in recent weeks though, when apparently an unusually high number of Newell's feral cats were disappearing. The authorities tend to get nervous about the idea of citizens randomly dispatching strays with .22's or BB guns within the city limits. Perhaps the sheriff's officers were even concerned about the slight possibility that somebody might be killing cats for twisted and gruesome reasons.

Somebody was killing cats, all right. Very dark and early one recent morning, the sheriff caught the perp red-handed.

Er—make that red-clawed. A great horned owl swooped down from a tree, grabbed a Siamese cat, and proceeded to have it for breakfast. There was no word on whether it used a runcible spoon.

"Runcible," by the way, is a nonsense word invented by Edward Lear. A couple of sources describe it as a spoon with short tines on the end, what we now call a "spork." A couple of other sources maintain, from the way he used the word in a couple of other stories and from one of his own drawings, that Lear simply used it to mean "gigantic." The latter meaning seems more logical, and also makes a runcible spoon an appropriate utensil for any bird big enough to routinely capture and munch on full-grown cats.

But the plot thickens. For one thing, the owl caught with its Siamese take-out wasn't working alone. Two of the birds have been seen in town. Second, catching them in the act doesn't mean the sheriff's office can do anything to protect the innocent cats of Newell. Great horned owls are a federally protected species, and it's illegal to harm them.

This could be a real problem. The owls, which can grow up to two feet tall with a wing span of 60 inches, are powerful predators. They eat practically anything, from rodents to skunks and even porcupines. A small town with plenty of cats gives them a handy all-you-can-eat buffet, and they probably can't taste the difference between a stray cat and someone's much-loved pet.

This raises an interesting question. What exactly would the federal authorities consider "harm"? Would someone be prosecuted for sending a pair of great horned owls down the mighty Missouri in a pea-green boat? Surely not, as long as they were supplied with plenty of quince and a couple of runcible spoons.

Categories: Just For Fun, Wild Things, Words for Nerds | Tags: , , , , | 3 Comments

Fall and Flying Objects

Posted on October 22, 2010 by Kathleen Fox

Why do so many more jet trails show up in the sky this time of year? I'm sure there's a good scientific explanation based on such factors as air temperatures and winds aloft, the refraction of the light based on the angle of the sun, and other things about which I don't have a clue.

I could look it up, I suppose, or ask someone who took more science classes than I did and probably paid more attention during them. Or I could just enjoy the patterns of the white streaks against the blue autumn skies, and let it go at that.

It's been a beautiful fall in the Black Hills this year, and we've appreciated it all the more because last year we didn't really get one. October started out with snow and bitter cold, which caught many of us unprepared in matters of snow tires, storing garden hoses, and getting out flannel sheets. Even worse, it caught the trees while the leaves were still green, so the fall colors consisted of brown, brown, and brown. This year, though, the trees got to dress up in their best yellows, reds, and golds. Mild days and crisp nights allowed the leaves to stay on display for a long time before they let go and flew to the ground.

Autumn also brings some less appealing flying objects. Our house has been full of flies and wasps. As far as I can tell, they hatch out somewhere inside the window sills, where they become trapped between the window and the screen. Sometimes they crawl around in there, buzzing and bumping up against the glass, until some kind soul can't stand their noise any more and opens the window to let them out.

Sometimes they slip under the edge of the screen into the house, where they buzz back and forth until they collapse on the dining room table. There they lie on their backs, legs kicking faintly, buzzing intermittently like a toy whose battery is giving out, until they expire.

I am not unsympathetic. I don't kill these innocent creatures wantonly or maliciously. At the same time, I don't really feel it's my responsibility to rescue them when they crawl across the kitchen faucet, ignoring my efforts to shoo them away, until they slip and fall into the dishwater and drown.

Compassion and understanding, however, were not my first reactions the other day when a wasp got caught in my hair. I could feel it crawling around in there, buzzing frantically much too close to my ear, and after trying to shake it out and brush it out with my fingers I made a dash for the bathroom to grab my hairbrush and brush it out before it stung me.

The other night at bedtime was the last straw. I went into the bathroom to brush my teeth, and there on the floor was the biggest spider I had ever seen. (Well, except for the tarantulas at Reptile Gardens, which don't count as they are safely behind glass instead of in the middle of my bathroom.) This one was huge and thick and black.

For an instant I stood frozen, trying to decide whether to step on the spider, run for the flyswatter, or just screech. That instant gave me a chance to take a closer look at the terrifying critter.

It was a plastic hair clip. Never mind.

Categories: Just For Fun, Wild Things | Tags: , , , , , | 3 Comments

Don’t Call Me At Dinnertime and I’ll Tell You No Lies

Posted on October 14, 2010 by Kathleen Fox

Have you ever lied to a pollster?

Me neither.

Okay, let's make a deal—I'll choose to believe you if you choose to believe me. And never mind the fact that anyone who would lie to a pollster might also lie about whether she had ever lied to a pollster.

Actually, I don't lie to pollsters. Suppose someone calls and wants to know my opinion on an issue—whether marijuana should be legalized, say, or whether the President is doing a good job. If I decide to answer the questions, I'll probably go ahead and tell them what I really think. That's assuming the caller is polite, the poll doesn't take too long, the questions appear reasonably unbiased, and I'm not in the middle of dinner.

For more specific questions, though, like which candidate I intend to vote for in a particular race, I generally decline to answer at all. For one thing, I tend to be suspicious about the impartiality of a great many polls. Framing questions so they are unbiased is incredibly difficult even if you're trying to be neutral—which, in my opinion, is often not the case. Maybe I'm just naturally contrary, but I prefer not to participate in what is essentially a marketing strategy for one candidate or another.

My second reason for not answering pollster's questions is, I hope, a bit more high-minded. One of the rights we have in this country is that of being able to vote in secret. I value the fact that no one, from an employer to a government official to my spouse, has the right to know how I vote unless I choose to tell them.

So why on earth should I share that information with some miscellaneous polling organization just because they happen to call and ask? If they want to find out how I'm going to vote, they can just wait until I get to the voting booth on Election Day.

After all, sometimes that's exactly what I do myself.

Categories: Living Consciously | Tags: , , , , | 2 Comments

Rocky Mountain High

Posted on October 7, 2010 by Kathleen Fox

How pathetic is it to be hiking in the mountains and be overtaken by a three-year-old girl in pink plastic shoes? Not only was she forging steadily onward and upward in her little Crocs—the backless kind, yet—but she kept talking the whole way without needing to pause for breath.

In our defense, we had to stop and rest several times because one member of our group wasn't feeling well. Another extenuating circumstance was that we were hiking at 10,000 feet. (The little girl, I'm sure, lives at that elevation.) Living in the Black Hills, I tend to think of myself as dwelling at altitude. Since our house in the foothills is at about 3500 feet, however, and since the highest point in the Hills, Harney Peak, is a modest 7242 feet, I guess I don't live quite as elevated an existence as I might like to think.

But we were on this steep, boulder-strewn trail for a higher purpose than to feel competitive with tots in Crocs. We were there to see St. Mary's glacier, which must be the smallest glacier in the world. It looked like a dirty snowdrift lying for about 100 feet along the side of a mountain. Not exactly spectacular, perhaps, but still worth the hike.

Going back down was much faster than the climb up; we even passed the little girl this time. Of course we were much too elevated—in the spiritual rather than the alpine sense—to feel at all superior about it. We had places to go, things to see, and other mountains to climb.

To drive up, anyway, on what is billed as the highest paved road in North America. It hugs the side of Mt. Evans for about 14 miles, two just-barely-adequate lanes with no shoulders and no room for sissified frills like guardrails. The steep drop-offs were awe-inspiring in more than one sense. I tried hard to believe our driver when he claimed he kept his eyes open the whole way.

We saw a mountain goat, only a few feet from the road, who paid no attention to the visitors taking his picture. He was too busy stocking up on calories for the winter ahead. From the thickness of his coat, he was well prepared for the cold weather to come.

At the edge of the tree line we got to walk through a stand of bristlecone pines, some of them 2000 years old. With their stubby wind-twisted branches, gnarled trunks, and scant bark, they're an amazing example of endurance through minimalist living.

The last stretch of the road was closed for the season, so we didn't make it to the 14,000-foot summit. The glacial lake at 12,000 feet, however, was still well above the tree line and was rewarding enough. The views were magnificent: aspens glowing golden in the sunlight, a shimmer of snow across the steep side of the summit, and a panorama of neighboring mountains. I needed a thesaurus to find other words for "spectacular," "awesome," and "wow."

Even the grandest of views, of course, can't make one forget indefinitely about the more mundane needs of life. As I approached the women's toilet, someone who was just coming out said, "I'm not the one who was smoking pot in there."

I believed her—just as I hope the next woman in line believed me when I said the same thing to her. But from the overwhelming reek of marijuana, someone certainly had been indulging in there. With acres of rocky slopes and ridges to disappear behind, her choice of a smoking site didn't make much sense.

Actually, it made no sense, in that marvelous spot near the top of the world, to smoke anything at all. Lock yourself in a toilet for a furtive joint? Or enjoy a magnificent view on a perfect October day? Only one of those is a real Rocky Mountain high.

Categories: Living Consciously, Travel | Tags: , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Kin Under the Skin

Posted on September 30, 2010 by Kathleen Fox

"It's just like a chicken." That was my first thought when I got a good look at the shoulder muscles and joints of a human body. They fit together very much the way a chicken's wing attaches to what would be its shoulder, if chickens had shoulders.

The comparison wasn't meant to be frivolous or disrespectful. It's just that I have more experience with chicken bodies than human bodies, having cut up quite a few chickens back before I got prosperous enough to mostly let the grocery store do it for me. (Which reminds me: our paper's food section yesterday featured a Community Education class on how to cut up a chicken. I can almost hear my grandmothers laughing themselves silly at the very idea.)

But I started out to talk about humans, not chickens. My knowledge of human bodies was expanded considerably this week by going to the Bodies Human exhibit that has been at our local mall for several weeks.

It's a display of real bodies and body parts, partially dissected and preserved through a process called "plastination." The idea may make you shudder. The reality, however, was awesome. The "eeew" factor was completely eclipsed by the "oooh" factor.

A kidney is much smaller than you might imagine. A heart looks a lot like the pump that it is. Lungs resemble sponges and are not nearly as tidy as most pictures show them. Muscles are layered over one another and connected in complex partnerships. Intricate networks of nerves and blood vessels thread across and through the muscles and bones. The human body is such an incredible, complicated, delicate machine that it's astonishing we work as well as we do.

I was lucky enough to see the exhibit in the company of my daughter the massage therapist, who is the family's resident expert on human anatomy. Her explanations added a great deal to the somewhat limited information that was printed with the displays. We weren't allowed to touch the exhibits, of course, so from time to time she demonstrated something on the nearest live human body—usually mine.

Actually, I noticed that all three of us who were there did the same thing. "Oh, that's the way the knee joint works," or, "That end right there is the funny bone in your elbow." And we'd be feeling our own bones or joints to compare them with what we were seeing.

The one drawback to the plastination process was that it made it harder to remember that the bodies were real, once-living human beings. The exhibits were prepared in a laboratory in Taiwan, where unclaimed bodies are often used for medical and scientific purposes. For that reason, I assume these people hadn't necessarily given permission for their bodies to travel here for the purpose of showing us their insides.

Nevertheless, I hope they might have approved. The opportunity to learn more about the miraculous inner workings of the human body was an amazing gift. I'm grateful to have been able to see it.

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No Fair Skipping the Q

Posted on September 23, 2010 by Kathleen Fox

If you're going to entertain yourself on a trip across western South Dakota by finding the alphabet (in order, and no cheating by skipping the Q) on billboards, I'd suggest starting well east of Kadoka.

That's assuming you're traveling from east to west. Going west you're heading toward the Black Hills, with its tourist attractions eager to catch the attention of I-90 travelers. Going east, don't bother with the game, because the billboards are so sparse that between one and the next you'll forget which letter you're looking for.

The challenge of the billboard game, of course, is finding the rarer letters: X, Z, and the infamous Q. The X (as in "exit") isn't a problem along the Interstate. The Z is rarer but not impossible, thanks to the CraZy Horse carving and occasional other amaZing attractions. Q can be more of a problem; thank goodness for Quick stops, antiQues, and Quiet campgrounds.

The hardest letter to find here, surprisingly, is J. This is why it's important to start east of Kadoka, where there is a sign advertising the Flying J truck stop near Rapid City. (Back when it was a Conoco, J's were really scarce.) For the discerning, there is also an inconspicuous J near the bottom of a billboard at the Kadoka off ramp. If you miss either of these, you might as well start hoping someone passes you in a Jeep.

During a recent trip across the western half of the state, I noticed quite a few new or freshly painted billboards for Black Hills tourist attractions. Based on this as an informal indicator of economic health, South Dakota is doing well.

I do have a few suggestions, though, for tourism businesses. As long as they're refurbishing billboards, how about making a few additions? Wall Drug could advertise its Zany cowboy Quartet and Quirky back alley and let us know the roaring T-Rex will make us Quiver in our flip-flops. The 1880 Town could add a Quick-draw contest. Reptile Gardens could promote its Jumping cockroaches and Jungle flowers—or maybe they could add a Jaguar or a Zebra.

You may think by now that I am a fan of billboards. Not so much. I do think they have their place—which probably includes the long stretch of Interstate across western South Dakota.

Still, creative travelers don't need billboards to entertain themselves. My daughter used to keep herself occupied by counting road kill, which she wrote down in a notebook under various categories: pheasants, deer, rabbits, raccoons, skunks, and UFO's (Unidentified Flat Objects).

Even someone who likes billboards might have to admit that there are way too many of them along the last few miles east of Exit 61 as you approach Rapid City. The road is littered with billboard after bigger billboard after enormous billboard, flashing lighted ads, and such an ugly clutter of signage that you can hardly find the exit. It isn't exactly the best way to welcome travelers to the beautiful Black Hills.

It reminds me of a parody by my favorite poet, Ogden Nash:

I think that I will never see
A billboard lovely as a tree.
Perhaps, unless the billboards fall,
I'll never see a tree at all.

Maybe some of the Exit 61 signs could be removed and spread out along I-90 eastbound. Only, of course, if they have plenty of Q's, Z's, and J's.

Categories: Just For Fun, Travel | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Wolf Creek Pass, Way Up On the Great Divide

Posted on September 16, 2010 by Kathleen Fox

If you're young enough or sophisticated enough that the title of this post didn't trigger a tune in your head that involves trucks and chickens, you might want to do an Internet search for C. W. McCall. Another choice would be to call me and have me sing you the chorus. I recommend the first option.

For the rest of you, feel free to hum along while you read. You can thank me later for getting the song stuck in your brain for the rest of the day.

Traveling spontaneously, without a schedule or advance reservations, can be wonderful. It gives you the freedom to change your plans, go where your fancy takes you, and follow your impulses.

After a hike down into—and back up out of—Canyon de Chelly on the Navaho reservation in northeastern Arizona, we headed for Colorado. Our plan was to spend the night at Durango and then head east and north in a relaxed and spontaneous manner. It was an excellent plan, made in blissful ignorance that on Labor Day weekend there is a motorcycle rally in the southern Rocky Mountains.

When we ambled into the Comfort Inn at Durango about 7:00 p.m. and said we wanted a room, the young woman at the desk was too polite to say, "Are you nuts?" She merely explained that every room in Durango was full. She suggested we might find one 60 miles east at Pagosa Springs.

A bit discouraged but still spontaneous, we drove on to Pagosa Springs, where we trotted into the lobby of the first motel we came to. "Sorry," the clerk said. Everything in town was full. He did think, though, the very expensive lodge just down the street had a couple of suites left.

We negotiated our way through a maze of service roads to find the very expensive lodge, screeched to a halt in front of its very expensive looking lobby, girded up our wallets, and hurried in—just in time to hear a biker tell the desk clerk, "Your last room? We'll take it. Guess it's our lucky day, huh?"

Certain that this same biker had passed us on the road a few miles outside of Durango, and wondering why there was never a highway patrolman around when you needed one, we went back to the car.

According to the map, the next town was South Fork, 44 miles away. The road, up and over Wolf Creek Pass, was marked as a "scenic route." Since it was after 8:30 and full dark by now, this designation did not cheer us. We were tired, cranky, and carefully not thinking about either the possibility of sleeping in the car or the intermittent grinding noises the brakes had been making all day.

In a dogged but spontaneous manner, we headed up Wolf Creek Pass. It was a classic mountain road, winding its way higher and higher around sharp curves and steep grades and switchbacks. There was an occasional scenic overlook. We didn't stop.

Finally, near the top of the pass, we did pull over and get out to stretch and wake ourselves up with a little fresh air. It felt fresh, all right—about 40 degrees fresh. Still, we stood outside for as long as we could, looking at the scenery.

Yes, scenery. Stars. At that altitude and distance from any town, the stars were visible in a way most of us in our street-lighted communities rarely see. The Milky Way was a bright path across the sky. Constellations were vivid shapes against the darkness. It was (at least to the non-geologist in the party) even more awe-inspiring than the grandeur of the canyon we had explored at the beginning of the day.

Eventually, shivering, we got back into the car and headed down the mountain. A few miles further on, we found the elderly but clean Wolf Creek Ski Lodge. It had one room left. We settled in gratefully and slept the sound sleep of those who enjoy relaxed and spontaneous travel.

We were even more grateful the next day that we hadn't had to drive another 120 miles to Walsenburg. They were hosting a classic car rally.

Categories: Just For Fun, Living Consciously, Travel | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

George Washington Wouldn’t Have Slept Well Here, Either

Posted on September 10, 2010 by Kathleen Fox

Seventeen hundred miles, five states, six days, cell phone coverage that was intermittent on a good day, and a car that started making funny noises a thousand miles from home on Friday evening of a holiday weekend. It sounds like a bad road-trip movie.

In fact, it was a mostly good road trip. A little too much driving, maybe, but enjoyable company and some interesting sights and sites along the way. Not to mention an opportunity to compare the amenities at several different motels.

There was the older chain motel with furniture that you might have called "vintage" if you were being polite or trying to sell it. The sagging easy chair must have been salvaged from the curb outside a college dorm. An historic lodge in a tourist area had an old, solid wood desk that I would have been tempted to steal if I thought it would fit in the car.

One downtown motel called itself the town's "quietest." True, it was several blocks away from the railroad tracks at the edge of town. But the air conditioner made so much noise that one of us seriously considered sleeping on the bathroom floor until we decided it was preferable to shut the thing off and pretend it wasn't 80 degrees at midnight.

Most of these places offered continental breakfasts. It wasn't always clear, however, which continent the food may have come from. One place had two choices, white bread or frozen waffles, topped with anything you wanted as long as it was either strawberry jelly or syrup. There was coffee, of course, and a few tea bags, but if you wanted hot water to go with the tea you had to ask the desk clerk to go into the back (probably to her own kitchen sink) and fill your cup with water so you could heat it in the microwave. The quality of the breakfast really didn't matter much anyway, because the lobby reeked so strongly of incense that you couldn't actually taste the food.

At least, despite the current attention they're getting, we didn't encounter any bedbugs. At least I don't think we did. Without my glasses, I wouldn't have been able to see one, anyhow.

Finally, on the sixth night, we found a place that had a very comfortable bed. The bathroom was supplied with extra toothbrushes, homemade soap, and big soft towels. The wireless Internet was located at a real workstation that had good light and a comfortable chair, even if the desk was terribly cluttered. There were laundry facilities, though the last people to use the room had left their dirty sheets in the hamper.

The kitchen was clean and fully equipped, but breakfast was meager. We found peanut butter, homemade chokecherry jelly, and even eggs, but the closest thing to bread was a couple of frozen hamburger buns. There was tea and coffee, but no milk. The fruit was one nectarine and a plum, both of which looked a bit battered, as if they had traveled several hundred miles in someone's cooler.

The housekeeper assured me this was not the usual state of affairs and it would be better after she made a trip to the grocery store. She also claimed there was usually homemade bread and said someone would mow the ragged grass in the next day or so.

We'll see. If she's right, we might stay here a while. Actually, come to think of it, we'll have to stay here a while. The car did make it this far, funny noises and all, but it's now in the shop. After we pay the bill, we may not be able to afford another trip.

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“Orange You Glad You Saw the Game?”

Posted on September 3, 2010 by Kathleen Fox

In South Dakota, seeing hordes of people wearing orange only means one thing—opening weekend of pheasant season. In a certain part of southeastern New Mexico, seeing hordes of people wearing orange only means one thing—opening weekend of football season.

For whatever reason, possibly including its proximity to Texas, where high school football is less a sport than a religion, this is a town that takes its football seriously. How seriously? Well, the windows of all the downtown businesses display pictures of the players, the cheerleaders, and the orange bulldog mascot. And if Halloween happens to fall on the Friday night of a home game, they postpone it (Halloween, not the game) to the next night.

It pretty much goes without saying that on game day, practically everyone in town wears something orange. Even though we were going to the game, I didn't exactly have a dog in the fight. Nevertheless, trying to be polite and blend in, I dug through my suitcase for the closest thing to orange I had, a coral-colored tee shirt.

As soon as we walked through the gate, I realized this was not high school football as I have ever known it. To me, a high school football field is just that—a field, with reasonably groomed grass, goal posts that may or may not have a fresh coat of paint, a few sets of bleachers, a concession shack, and maybe a couple of bathrooms.

This was a stadium—with tiers of seats on both sides, a high concrete walkway circling the field, at least two concession stands, end zones made up of orange and white squares of artificial turf, a giant inflatable orange bulldog mascot at one end of the field, and skyboxes, for Pete's sake. Plus fireworks at the beginning and end of the game. (Most of it privately funded, I should note, for anyone concerned about the wise use of tax dollars.)

And orange everywhere. Blaze orange. Tangerine. Yellow-orange. Ochre. Faded rust. Not just shirts and caps, either, though both were plentiful. Shoelaces. Lapel buttons. Seat cushions. Bags. Hair ornaments.

No orange hair, though, which I found surprising and a little disappointing. There were some kids with orange goop smeared on their faces and hair, but they looked less like football fans than members of a struggling wannabe grunge band called Zombies of the Pumpkin Patch. This may explain why that particular look was limited to a handful of junior high boys.

The moon came up, nearly full, at the beginning of the second half. It was—I am not making this up—orange.

Amid all this color, my well-intentioned coral shirt looked very, very pink.

On the other side of the stadium, supporters of the visiting team, from a town some 60 miles away, were out in force—and in blue. I kept my feet under the seat in front of me so no one would notice my potentially disloyal blue socks.

Oh, and the football game? The visitors made seven touchdowns, were ahead by 14 points at the end of the first half, and scored a total of 49 points. The bulldogs made nine touchdowns and ended up with 63 points. It was the best high school football game I've ever seen. Also the longest; the second quarter lasted an hour.

By the end of the game, I had a better understanding of why football here is such a big deal. It was almost enough to make me think about buying something orange. Not a tee shirt, though. A seat cushion.

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