It's Not Your Mother's Football...

 Me, along with Cathy and Matt made the drive to see our nephew Chase play with the Shreveport Rugby Club against Cy-Fair. We had a good time, a great visit with Chase and the team won.

Rugby is not totally unfamiliar with me. Back in the late 70s when I was a student at Stephen F. Austin State University many of my friends from the dorm including U.S. Tico and another jr. high friend from the old neighborhood, Joe Jones played on the SFASU team. They once won a a state title in 1978 and still have occasional team reunions. 

I always tried to go to the Saturday SFASU games if I was not marching with the Lumberjack Band at a football game and was interested in playing but if you don't make it on the field in during the 1st or 2nd half you can always come play the third half which involves lots of beer, the singing of bawdy limericks, various stages of undress and girls that follow the team around calling themselves rugger huggers. 

While I was sitting at the game it occurred to me that all those rugger huggers I knew back then are now pushing 70 (as I am also) and since we all are beginning to rack up some serious years of sobriety we skipped playing the third half for a quiet dinner on an outside patio and some good conversation. 

Here's the best photo I got with my cell phone of Chase in action during the scrum. That's him about the middle of the pile, the red and black of Shreveport and the shortest shorts. Shorts have to be short because if the are not short they are long. I think when me and Chase met we both had on short shorts It's a thing with us and hopefully one day you will meet someone you can have a thing with too.

We arrived about 10 minutes or so into the game and missed Chase getting a yellow card for punching a guy. Chase, if you see us running late hold those punches till later. 

Shreveport won and I think they had 50 points. I forget how many the other had but a high scoring game is always exciting. I caught Cathy at home later at the computer looking up rugby shirts with slogans. I can tell by the way she's acting that I will probably have to play a third half to hear the bawdy songs.  

Just remember that when you solo a verse to the song, if you mess it up they pour a beer in a shoe and you have to chug it from the shoe. As a bartender once told me, "you'll be surprised what they will drink out of."