One Night Stand

Lately work has been nuts, client renewals, audits and inspections have kept me & my staff very busy. Adding to my schedule are the Nov. 6 election and my family.

The funky news is a dear friend of my daughter & her fiancee' picked up a rare virus and died. The eighteen year old was the son of my future son in law's employer. The father owns a mid-size landscaping and contracting firm.
He has been incredibly supportive of my future son in law. (Believe me.) His kindness speaks to his character.

What is truly sad about this situation, his son had the best medicine money could buy. My prayers go out to the grieving.

My favorite uncle was released from the hospital to the loving arms of his first wife, to the dismay of his current girlfriend. No drama there. He had problems with his pacemaker. More problems lie ahead...

In the middle of my schedule, I managed to sneak in some fun. Since we had to renew an account in western PA, a friend provided tickets to the Steelers-San Francisco game. Steelers tickets are a premium, this was huge. When I shared our good fortune with my associate, I thought he would do a backflip. The last time I saw this side of him was the birth of his child.

We dined with my friend and his family of five kids at wonderful Italian restaurant Saturday night upon our arrival.

The next day we began our day with breakfast at the Steel City Diner, which was around the corner from our hotel. It was there where the magic began. We watched this slow ripple to then the tidal wave of black gold stream down the street.

We had no clue how close we were to the stadium. Watching this sea of people heading to the stadium at 10 am was unbelievable.

What is different than what I have seen is Philly was the foot traffic. Along the "parade route" were vendors selling Steelers stuff. My associate knew that I fell in love with football during the Bradshaw, Stallworth, Greene, Swan era. I switched to the Eagles in college, to this day I'm not sure why.

After parading the mile & half to the stadium, the sights, sounds and smells from the tailgating were amazing. A high school band performed. The local radio station had a huge barbeque and the reps were dragging people to their tent.

A local charity was collecting money for the homeless. Their buckets were full of cash. What was absent were the local police.

I was stunned at the multi-generations. I would never take my dad or my grandson to an Eagles game at their current ages.

Our seats were in the club section on the FIFTY YARD LINE. Wow. It was cool. It was like Christmas in September.

It was sooo exciting. The fans were fired up and LOUD. I don't know how the either team could hear the plays being called. Even though it took Big Ben three quarters to get it together, they were more supportive than critical. Wow.

After the game, we lingered in the stadium soaking up our experience. My associate turned to me with a quizzical look and said, well? I shook my head and said "no baby, I still love my Birds."

I slipped into the colors and cheered with the hometown crowd. But like a discreet and brief love affair, I have returned home to the comfort of my Eagles.