You heard it correctly. I tailgated in Armenia, in honor of the start of UCF football. So this weekend marked the first Saturday in September. And for the last 3 years, every Saturday in September, October, and November was one thing and one thing only. Football. And not just any football, college football. And not just any college. The University of Central Florida or UCF. The 3rd largest Univ in the nation. That’s right people, eat it up. And I didn’t just do it for the fact of football, or for ritual of drinking with a guy named skinny Pete on Saturday’s. (and yes a guy named skinny Pete was their every Saturday actually) It was for the experience and the atmosphere. It was for the face paint, the same wig I wore to every game without washing for 3 years. The jerseys that say 24K even though he left 2 years ago (you get it if you’re a knight). It was for the fact that every girl looked gorgeous on game day, outside under a tent, wearing black and gold knee high socks and playing beer pong or flip cup and skimming beers of guys because they were hot. For that random game you got dragged into with people you don’t know and now you have to shotgun a beer then have a dizzy-bat relay race. (This is the point where my mom google’s what shot gunning a beer is… then emails me…) And for “that guy” that walks around with no shirt on and thinking he is the hottest thing since skin colored band-aide’s and carrying his own 6 pack in the cardboard box while his buddy is driving a cooler full of beer and running over empty beer cans, ya that’s right, a motorized cooler. It was for the feeling you get when you are walking to the stadium with 44,974 other people, and that sacred tradition of shaking your keys at opening kick-off.
This was the first time I have truly been homesick. Because I am thinking of every Saturday when me and the boys took a Moe’s tent, a grill, and tailgate in between the Psych building and the Alumni Center on top of the drain, same spot for 3 years. This is why I am homesick.
I had the privilege of obtaining a leadership position at UCF where I was the student ambassador to the UCF alumni association and the UCF community. So I was basically a walking billboard for the Univ. I learned to love every aspect of that school. I am confident that if you cut me now, I will bleed black and gold. So going to these games, seeing the students, the alumni, the boosters, it was my tiny version of heaven. I loved every minute of it, rain or shine.
So yesterday was the first game against South Dakota. We won, great start to the season. But I was I walking to a café to hang out with some other volunteers and have a beer, and definitely it was a hard walk. My first toast when I got to the café was to UCF football. But more importantly it was to my friends that I went to every game with. It was to everything I mentioned above, the atmosphere that I wasn’t going to have. I knew I would miss things when I joined the Peace Corps, but I never thought that Saturday tailgating at UCF would be atop the list 3 months in to service.
After my day with volunteers yesterday, I was walking home and I was listening to my ipod, and I was jamming to a little O.A.R., and a song came on called “I Feel Home,” I have attached the youtube link. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSuaqVxFqq4 and some of the lines just made it all a little worse… and then better. The song says, and this is a couple random lines, “There are few things pure in the world anymore, and home is one of the few…I feel Home when im chillin outside with the people I know… in a thousand years and a thousand tears, I will find my original crew… I feel home, when I see the faces that know my own…” as you can imagine, it was like throwing gas on a fire. But it was good. It brought to light so many good memories, and times when I will never forget with the people I will never forget. Like the time me greg, skinny pete (told you he was real) and jenna drove to UMiami when UCF played them, and we had random people come ask us if this was the car they could do a beer bong off of….? Of course we answered. Or when me and adam went to the bowl game in Tampa, and we sat next to a federal judge and his drunk wife who offered her husbands services if we ever got into trouble. Or when we picked up 2 parents that were drinking on the side of the road during parents weekend and took them to campus so they could find their daughter.
But after thinking about this for a while, and listening to that song all the way to the end, I realized something. Even though im not with those guys, and we all live in different places now, they are always with me. Everywhere I go, every smile I have, is partly because of them. What I see with my own eyes is their lens to parts of the world they have never been to. I wouldn’t be where I am today if it wasn’t for these same people, and I know no matter when I am in the world, they are still my best friends. I could go months without talking to them, and the next time I speak with them, it’s like we just hung out yesterday, and we will be tomorrow. With so much going on in life, its memories like these that are important. The ones that make you forget about the rough situation of today, and troubles that may come tomorrow, but all you can think about are the memories of yesterday. And with going through so much with these individuals, I consider them family. Doesn’t matter what happens, they will be a part of everything from here on out.
So this rum drink I currently have in my hand, this one is for you Boys. Every member of the palace, every UCF game we went to, and every time I got you a gold parking pass. This is for every game we went to, and the ones I know we will go to in the future. This is for every argument over what time to go tailgate, and for the time I dragged all of you out in hurricane force winds to tailgate at the game. P4L
Alex
“Mr. UCF”
